


A Bleeding God

by RainKiss



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 96 percent Canon Compliant, Avenger Bashing, Background Relationships, Because I changed the tiniest of details, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Descent into Villainy, Gen, He just doesn't think he is, OCs that make up Team Mysterio, POV Mysterio, POV Outsider, Quentin Beck is a bad guy, Tony Stark bashing because it's Mysterio's story, but does change the personality of a character by a fair bit, that don't actually matter to the plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2020-09-26 08:37:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 91,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20386828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainKiss/pseuds/RainKiss
Summary: See, the reality of working for Stark Industries was understanding that every employee there would inevitably have to defer to Tony Stark’s decision.And Tony Stark was god.Quentin Beck was just another guy who sought to be the best, but fated to always have a life defined by Stark.Along with that upstart, Parker.





	1. Stark Reality

**Author's Note:**

> This began as a character sketch of Mysterio, which turned into this fic. All I wanted to do was write the scene where Quentin finds out that Tony had left E.D.I.T.H to Peter.  
Well, here you go!

**APPOINTMENT LETTER**

**Date: July 02, 2004**

**Name: Quentin Beck**

  
**Designation: Assistant Technical Advisor**  
  
**Main Department: Research and Development**  
  
**Reporting Manager: Dr. William Ginter Riva**  


In 2004, Quentin Beck had graduated from MIT with honors. His 6 month internship with Stark Industries had worked into a full time employment opportunity which he'd taken with no hesitation. He was on the rise with a dozen different plans to implement now that he'd have the resources to back it up.

**Section A**

**With reference to your application, interview, and internship with us, Stark Industries is pleased to offer you employment in our company, on the following terms and conditions…**

Quentin had signed the 22 page agreement. His mind was overrun with the possibilities of what a job at the revered Stark Industries would entail.

**Section B1**

**As an employee of SI, you will be in possession of information select to the privacy of the company. This agreement asserts that you will not disclose such confidential information to any third person or party. You will not make copies of confidential information pertaining to the company, nor will you distribute them in any way, manner, or form that violates the rules of said information.**

Quentin Beck was a technical genius.

Over the years, he rose the tiers, working every level, aceing every appraisal, and painstakingly achieving his well-deserved promotions. Once in a while, he would receive offer letters from other companies of household names. Hammer Industries was a laughable one that made him chuckle and show to his colleagues. OsCorp had made him preen. Quentin may not have agreed with their stance on animal testing, but it was still an established company. He rejected everything and continued his climb up SI. 

By 2008, Quentin had been involved in two different projects at SI, the first being a reinvention of GPS in Stark missile systems, and the second being a consultant on changing drone capabilities. He worked closely with Riva for a few months on it, while developing a paper on one of his own ideas that could be implemented with weapon systems. Holographic tech wasn’t a wholly new concept, but Quentin had several implementations that could rack up points in its favor.

Just as his paper was reviewed and accepted, with a new team set up for the sub-project of hologram capabilities, Quentin’s boss’s boss’s boss was abducted in Afghanistan.

Tony Stark came back in two pieces. One made of broken flesh, and the other built of a tiny version of the shop sized arc reactor in the company's basement. 

Stark went on to dismantle the weapons division without so much as a warning to the thousands of people actually working in that department.

What?

Quentin recalled staring at the TV screen, gobsmacked. His phone rang twenty times over the course of the week, because Stark was too busy being holed up in his mansion working on something not even Obadiah Stane was privy to.

The Board began to direct any mails through Riva’s department. As if that would undo the devastation. It was two weeks of failing damage control until news was released that Stane went missing, Stark was in some metal suit that could fly and was equipped with hundreds of fatal pocket sized weapons, and a renewed hand-held arc reactor that rendered every attempt on energy source on the planet obsolete.

SI did a basic overhaul of their priorities. With the weapons division gone, many of the employees had to rework their careers if they wanted to stay with the company. Quentin had considered taking up OsCorp's offer, but instead, renegotiated his terms when he got an upgrade in his salary and designation if he were to stay with SI.

Quentin was able to continue his project on holographic tech only without weapons or A grade offense system implementation. That was fine. He had a plethora of ideas to work around.

Later that day, Tony Stark had his most famous press conference in history.

_I am Iron Man._

What sort of… what _idiot_ would announce his superhero identity to the world? That's not how it works, there were rules…

But of course, for Stark, the rules were but fragile test tubes in the hands of overeager children visiting chemistry labs for the first time.

Quentin couldn’t believe the hypocrisy. Stark dissolved the weapons manufacturing division at SI because of the unseen consequences of war, as though he hadn’t realized that missile exploding led to people being murdered.

And yet… Stark went on, in the same vein to equip himself with the most weapon loaded tech on the planet. The Iron Man armor could bring down an army within a day. It was the most offensive system created, in more ways than one.

Quentin didn’t want to bother himself with that though. He was busy, guiding his team to start work on holographic projections.

Holographic projection: those two words gave him delirious dreams.

He began work again, almost easily managing to make his way to the top. Within months, he was heading the project.

He made good connections with at least ten others on the same floor. They didn’t really have time for breaks or lunch during the same hours, but Quentin knew the value of maintaining a smart work-life balance. He didn't have much family, but these friends made up for so much.

Four months in, Pepper Potts called him up for a meeting. 

This was right after the disaster in Monaco. Quentin had nearly bluescreened when he’d checked his account in the morning and found an email from the new CEO’s team.

**Dear Quentin Beck,**

**Congratulations!**

**With reference to your appraisal dated February 1, 2011 and the subsequent discussions you have had with us, we are pleased to inform you that you have been selected for the post of Lead Technological Engineer of the newly titled Department of Holographic Technology.**

**We request you to login to the company portal and accept the offer letter within 7 days of receipt of this mail. **

**Following this, CEO Virginia Potts has arranged a one-on-one briefing with you in her new office on the 68th floor of Stark Tower. Please report to her secretary, Natalie Rushman, at 10:00 A.M. on March 4, 2011.**

**Best Wishes,**

**Recruitment Team**

**Stark Industries**

Quentin had called Riva and Janice to scream.

When he’d gone to Potts’s new office, it was in a state of renovation. Large boards covered by an immense sheet of wall rested to his right, the floor-to-ceiling windows were being cleaned by a window washer outside the building, the room had unopened carton boxes to the side. There was a flatscreen TV showcasing news on mute on the opposite wall. The carpeted floor between the door and the CEO’s desk was empty and her desk was neatly aligned with papers and a landline. 

“Your report is enlightening, Quentin,” Potts said, after she’d greeted him into the room. She was in a grey suit dress. “The range of uses that your tech can provide is astonishing. Of course, we no longer work in the weapons business, so some of your options will be non-credible.”

”That’s true, Ms. Potts,” Beck replied, drawing up another folder from his bag to lay out blue-prints for pocket-sized projectors. “However, my vision of this does involve implementing holographic memory storage in devices as small as cell phones. This is a prototype of the design my team and I have been refining this week.”

“Cell phones? Is memory storage the only obstacle?”

“Oh no, that’s one of the main ones, though. We also need long lasting battery capabilities, since the entire device is meant to withstand that kind of usage and storage. We can’t just attempt to project a two-dimensional photo in three-dimensional space. The image we have to capture first requires 3D tech. It’s a work in progress, but my plan has been vetted by William Ginter Riva from Drone Tech Division and signed off by Danielle Sadusky from the R&D Board.”

Potts nodded and quickly signed on the last page of his report. His shoulders that were weighed down by nervousness and prayer, were suddenly lightened by the action.

“I look forward to seeing your progress, Quentin,” Potts congratulated him with a smile. “I will advise you to have Darla Esteban vet your report as well. She heads the Game Design team on the 50th floor. You can upload your acceptance in the portal by the end of the week.”

Quentin almost frowned at the additional vetting request, but immediately slapped on a grin and nodded.

“Yes. Thank you, Ms.Potts.”

“Good day, Mr. Beck.”

His meeting with Pepper Potts had gone quite well. She, unlike Stark, had taken the time to meet with the many heads of different departments to get personal statements of how every division was progressing. She had been courteous and pleasant, never raising her voice like Stane used to constantly do, or talking over people, like Stark still loved doing. Potts was vigilant and kind. 

Quentin had only run across Natalie Rushman once but it had been a terrifying thing to see her bore into his head with a single glare. From what he heard of her, she caused similar reactions in several employees, even Stark himself.

He began to have doubts, more solid doubts, that multi-million dollar corporations were in fact evil. It started with William.

Quentin went to Riva’s house. Janice Lincoln was there along with her then boyfriend, who also worked at SI in Game Design. Quentin only recognized him when he’d gone to get his hologram report attested by Esteban.

Riva lived on the seventh floor of a highrise. A lovely, homely place considering that he spent most of the time in the office. The lights were tinted yellow, the walls had golden wallpaper the curtains were maroon, and the paintings were rosy red. An aged radio sat on a shelf by the bookcase. It was switched on to a golden oldy. Quentin stretched out on the loveseat as Janice brought over a six pack. Riva took two cans for himself. 

“I guess there’s no point in asking you to pace yourself?” Janice sighed. Riva shrugged, opening a can.

”I’ve been thinking of sending in my resignation.”

Quentin nearly spat out his beer. “William?! Wait, is that why you called us here?”

Janice and her boyfriend looked stunned too.

Riva sat forward, a frown wrinkling his balding forehead. “I’m not supposed to say this, so don’t let this get out of the room. I’m under probation.”

”Will -”

“You remember when I had to put my drone reports on hold for two weeks, right before Stane went missing?”

Riva went on to explain what exactly happened. This was just after Stark had returned from the desert with his metal chest implant. Apparently, Obadiah Stane had recruited eight scientists to shift chores for the month and focus on the arc reactor. He had desired a model, similar to Stark’s implant. When Riva and the team failed to come up with a fully functioning miniature arc reactor, Stane had basically threatened to fire them. 

Once he had gone missing, a bunch of agents had interrogated the eight scientists for hours to determine what exactly Stane had been up to. None of them knew, but it didn’t stop the agents. They were all placed under suspicion and tracked regularly until a few days ago.

”Oh my god!” Janice whispered, “Will! If they held you in custody without warrant -”

”It was months ago, and honestly. Not all of us have it that bad,” Riva sighed. “I know Victoria’s fine. She’s been promoted to R&D now. Jenny, Tania, Victor, and Han are also doing okay. We decided to not talk about it.”

”Nobody talks about Stane now. It’s an unwritten rule,” Janice’s boyfriend stated. “But I’ve heard rumors that he’s in prison serving life.”

”He’s dead,” Riva said. The light was harsh on his face.

The apartment was silent except for the tunes from the radio. The bubbles in Quentin’s stomach seemed to have nothing to do with the beer. He felt sweaty and gross.

”Will… are you sure? How do you know that?”

”Victoria said that Jamie overhead one of the agents talking to Potts, right before that press conference. They were FBI or something. They had some alibi for Stark, something about a boat with a lot of people to verify him… But Stark went off script.”

Quentin leaned back against the couch. He felt sick, especially under the soft golden light of the house. Were they all working for a murderer?

”Are you saying Stark killed him?”

Will shrugged, looking tired. “No clue. Jamie was the first to be put on probation after that day. He always said that the Board and even Potts were hiding something. He had suspicions about the new secretary too.”

”Who? Rushman? She’s nice!” Janice protested.

”She’s also new. What would she know about all this?” Quentin pointed out.

”I don’t know,” William muttered, downing the rest of his beer. “But Jamie was fired last week, without notice. They didn’t give a cause. I’d rather resign than be fired.”

Quentin had gone home, head in a tizzy. Stane had been an asshole, probably worse than Stark. Beck hadn’t interacted closely with either of them. But if Stark really killed him… and then had help from the FBI or CIA to cover it up…

A few days later, Riva was demoted. The Drone Tech Division had fallen under the weapons program and was meant to be removed completely. But Stark had revised the terms and now, Riva’s team had gone through a turnover to retain few people only necessary to develop drone tech, with no need for weapon accommodation. Their budget fell, they moved to another floor with cramped quarters, and lumpy couches, and a refrigerator that liked to spark out no matter how much Janice tried to fix it.

**Section C1**

**During the course of your employment, if any misconduct on your part has been observed and/or reported, such as any breach in the terms and conditions of your appointment letter, the company is entitled to terminate your employment without notice or payment in lieu of notice, then due to you, the amount of any damage the company may have sustained. **

Janice’s boyfriend was called Guterman. Beck called him Gutes. Gutes called him Beckingham.

Once in a while, Gutes would come down from the safe zone. Game Design was the safe zone territory that had not been affected by the ups and downs of the company over the past year. He worked on Stark phone apps, started out with technical writing and ending up heading a small team that sent out revised versions after every reported bug was tackled.

”How’s the holo tech coming along?” Gutes asked during an empty lunch hour. Quentin dug into his salad without relish. 

It’s moving. We’ve been working on video capabilities. It’s running slower than the static images.”

"If it’s running on the WiFi, see if you can get that upgraded. Victoria’s floor has the second best goddamn WiFi network in the whole tower! Get her to boost it for you.”

"And where’s the fastest signal?”

Where d’you think? Stark’s personal labs, obviously. I don’t know what he’s doing up there, but it’s definitely not company stuff.” Gutes huffed, stealing a lettuce slice from Quentin’s tray.

Quentin batted him away without enthusiasm. Faster WiFi was the first thing he’d thought of. But really, they were running on 60 gb per second, which was mind blowing on its own. The point of building a compact holographic projector was that it should work on low signal speeds too.

He went to the main R&D labs anyway. He’d never really met Victoria outside group ventures.

Victoria Snow was the most laid back scientist Quentin had ever met. He didn’t even know people could be so chill in a cut-throat environment like theirs. She played Boney M and Bees Gees in a small lab which she had all to herself. Her lab coat was drizzled with yellow and green paint (or it looked like paint, Quentin didn’t want to assume the worst).

”I’m working on controlled transient electromagnetic pulses. I need this space to myself, not to mention, all this data needs to be monitored as and when it happens. The speed’s 80 here,” She chirped, handing Quentin specialized noise-cancelling headphones.

"80 gigabytes? Per second?”

”Yup!”

They stood behind a glass panel, looking into a smaller room built inside the lab. The machine inside was rigged like an EMP, but it was smaller and looked far lighter than any EMP with that kind of power should. She turned it on and Quentin could almost see the sound waves hit the room and shudder the objects placed as decoy inside.

Victoria fixed his lab’s WiFi and within hours, it was running on 80 gb per second. This got a lot of things done with the coding and simulations. Quentin emailed the findings to Sadusky in R&D that day.

She sent a short draft of her response, stating that she was forwarding the report to somebody else to take an indepth look at the project. Quentin supposed this was good news. She’d had nothing but praise for the holo tech his team was designing.

At the end of the day, Sadusky sent a new email.

**Hello Quentin Beck,**

**The latest numbers on your project look very promising. The simulations are running better than your original projections which is a feat in itself. I congratulate your team for achieving this stage in such a short period of time.**

**You will have a long way to go, concerning the projector tech. I have sent in your findings to the Board and they had made the unanimous decision to let you spearhead the project. You will not need to report to me, but can converse directly to SI owner, Tony Stark. He has taken up the report and will be down in your lab on Wednesday to see a live demonstration of your report.**

**I have no problems in believing that things will go smoothly. Your work is extraordinary, and I have attested to them myself.**

**Please keep the lab and the contents ready for Mr. Stark by 2:00 p.m. The demonstration, explanation and feedback, may take no longer than three hours, so I would recommend you have all of your team assembled before hand.**

**Good luck, Mr. Beck.**

**Regards,**

**Darla Sadusky**

**HOD**

**Research and Development**

Quentin fell into his chair and re-read the mail.

This was real. He was going to report directly to Tony Stark.

Then why was he still feeling sweaty and gross?

**~~~~~**

The team spent days getting their project ready for their presentation. Wednesday came sooner than Quentin would have liked. The others had forced him to go home the previous night and try to get a few hours of sleep. It barely worked. Quentin had to do a quick slick back of his hair and a face wash before rushing out of his home and getting ready for two o’clock.

They had an early lunch and then packed themselves into their lab. Quentin looked over his team of sixteen people. Everyone was nervous, somewhere unable to hide their grins.

“Guys, before Stark arrives, I’d like to say something,” Quentin called out, holding their attention almost immediately.

“Everyone knows their roles, you know exactly the best parts and shortcomings of the tech we’re building here. We still have a lot to do, but our 3D static images have the shortest rendering time yet. That is an achievement and I am incredibly impressed at all of you. All we have to do is show our work to Stark because it speaks for itself. If he asks a question aimed at one of you, take it and answer it because you know your shit. And it is brilliant.”

One of the newbies, Marion, whooped. The others clapped and grinned widely. Quentin felt energized by his own pep talk.

Nothing would go wrong.

Two o’clock passed… 2:30… 3… 3:30… 3:45...

Quentin stared at his phone in disbelief as the time flashed in his face. His team was lolling around the hall, fiddling with random gizmos, checking the presentation set-up for the fiftieth time. Stefan was half asleep in the corner.

It was 4:00 pm when the elevator dinged and the doors opened to allow Tony Stark to waltz in; like he owned their time, like he owned the world.

In a way, he did.

Stark had a grey suit on, but he’d removed his tie and crumpled it up before shoving it half-hazardly into his pocket. The top button of his shirt remained open. He wore shades over his slightly unshaven face that made the stubble around his iconic beard look more prominent. His hair stuck up as though it was him who had stayed up late to work on a presentation, and not Quentin and his team.

Stark also carried a Gatorade bottle, filled with dark green liquid. He flipped open the lid, took a swig like it was a shot, and turned to face the machine they’d placed in the middle of the room.

“Right!” Stark announced, searching the room until his face looked at Quentin’s. “You’re Beck?”

Quentin had to fight himself to not give away his frustration. “Yes, sir. Quentin Beck, I’m the Lead --”

“I read your pamphlet about the hologram. It was neat. Lot’s to do today. Let’s get this show on the road.”

Quentin bit his tongue to stop from yelling. He turned and nodded at Taylor, who immediately launched into the introduction of their rehearsed speeches.

The whole thing ended in half-an-hour when Stark began to cough and drink up the liquid like it was brandy. Quentin idly wondered if the man was about to drop dead when Stark stood up straight and said, “Okay, this was swell. Concept is larger than life, we need to get it compact. No problem. Cool rendering, still too slow. Here’s my advice: Scrap the special effect gimmick and go full VFX on the image. We’re not using stock photos and it ain’t a photo shoot. If you’re using particle effects to get work done on the sunlight filtering through the image, that can overload the battery capacity since you’re already using different programs to create a complex, singular result.”

“All due respect, Mr. Stark,” Quentin said, seething. “There is no CC program with multiple apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, or After Effects services that are available to us. We began the process from scratch to make the entire project absolutely unique as is stated in the contract - ”

“Who processed your primary proposal?”

Was it Quentin’s imagination or did Stark suddenly jump from distracted-annoyed to specific-annoyed?

It made him nervous. Riva had been on probation before and now he’d just been demoted.

But Quentin couldn’t just… not say. Stark could easily activate his AI and ask him for the name.

Sorry, Will.

“Dr. William Ginter Riva from Drone Tech Division. He also vetted my final version which was greenlit by Ms. Potts.

Throwing the woman’s name at him didn’t feel as dirty as it probably should. Everyone knew that there as some friction between Potts and Stark. Rumor was that they’d fought a while back. Creative differences was a phrase thrown about, but really, when Stark had creative differences with others, it usually ended with someone getting fired or being bought out of their shares.

It was different with Potts, though. Quentin knew that, and it was so satisfying seeing Stark’s prideful face falter for a moment.

He quickly gazed at the machine in front of him. “Well… either he didn’t analyse this with enough foresight to see what obstacles could come up, or he just didn’t see fit to warn you of them. When it comes to dealing with concepts that haven’t been attempted at this scale before, you’re allowed to get help,” Stark huffed. 

Quentin watched as Marion and Sidney, who had the good fortune to now stand behind Stark, share a surprised look. Quentin got where they were coming from. Stark sounded like the right hypocrite, advising them to seek help to lighten their load.

Stark continued, “Everyone starts somewhere. You could very easily have used CC as a jumping off point until you wrote your own programs for similar editing software, tweaked to your specific project. We do have an IT department. I’m sure they can have it installed in your systems overnight.”

He finished his strange drink and languidly gestured towards their holo tech prototype. “I came here on the assumption that you had managed to fit holograms into cell phones. That is definitely part of the package, is it not?”

“This is a prototype, Mr. Stark. We need to isolate on the ability to have perfect holographic techniques before focusing on it’s size.”

Stark gave a long sigh. “Fine! Your team can start blueprints on how your would like to fix the hardware part of the issue. I’ll get back to you on the software. Nice PPT, Taylor.”

Taylor scrambled a thanks but Stark had already turned on his heel and sauntered towards the elevator.

Quentin pushed his palms over his thighs in an effort to restraining himself.

Stark hadn’t even let them show the extent of their visual results.

Quentin was enraged enough that he didn’t attend the Stark Expo that year. 

After all the damage from the Expo, after the news, after a week where there were rumors that Stark had been dying, Quentin gets an email from the man himself.

He almost sent it to spam, but peeks at the title.

The email had only one line of text along with a clickable icon with the SI logo.

** _Stark HTV9_03282011_ **

**This should speed up the rendering.**

**Tony Stark**

**Lead Engineer and owner of SI**

Quentin swallowed as he opened the application and scrolled down the available features and setting. Stark had created a whole new software to capture, composite, and edit 3D visuals.

In under a week.

See, the reality of working for Stark Industries was understanding that every employee there would inevitably have to defer to Tony Stark’s decision.

It didn’t matter that Quentin Beck was the one who had the initial idea for advanced holographic technology that was destined to be a game-changer in the face of revolutionary science. He was the one who dreamt of the possibilities, he was the one who put together a list of capabilities, refined it into words, actual paper-worthy words that would be taken seriously by superiors. Quentin was the one who worked his ass off for months to bring the prototype to life, to implement all the ideas, however slow it may seem to Stark. It wasn’t slow to the rest of the world.

And yet… the stupid app that Stark designed and turned into a working model within a week, could be used by anyone in the world to create a functional 3D holotech with scrap and proper brains. But instead, he intended it to be used by the holo team in his company.

Quentin could never slap his name onto the tech, no matter how many hours of sleep he lost working over it, no matter how many months of slaving away, no matter how many gigabytes of information they would have to save or throw away...

Everything belonged to one man.

**Section B2.1**

**All material developed by you, including but not only physical components and software information pertaining to SI technology, carry intellectual property rights and shall at all times remain the property of Stark Industries.**


	2. Envy, Thy Name is Quentin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The idiot just gave his home address to the world, while threatening an international terrorist. No wonder his house got bombed. Without Stark’s attestation, the team wouldn’t be able to progress onto the next phase of their hologram project.  
Quentin groaned. Did Stark like making his life so difficult?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter blew up. 11K words, I'm not kidding! Have fun.

The difference between jealousy and envy - jealousy was what everyone felt regarding Quentin. Envy was what Quentin felt with Stark.

Along with irritation, annoyance, hatred, and really anything negative. Quentin always had the ability to feel multiple emotions towards the billionaire. It was a gift.

One of Quentin’s shortcomings was that he did not have a doctorate.

That would have to be rectified.

He applied for a smart course with MIT, submitting his hypothesis on the emergence of revolutionary technology and its applications in regular life. The abstract itself was three pages long. Quentin revised it a dozen times before sending it off to one of his professors at the institute.

The reply came two weeks late in November 2011.

**Dear Mr. Beck,**

**It’s good to hear from you. I always knew your career would be a fruitful one. You have smart and ambitious goals. Your submission concerning upcoming technological assets is an interesting read. Regrettably, I would advise you to find another mentor for the field since this is my last year working at the institute. I will be retiring next summer and have finally put in place my elaborate world travel plans.**

**I will send you a list of people who are better suited to guide you.**

**A concern I have about your paper is that you have included individual tech examples in your research basis as mere mentions. You must aim your research at a very specific kind of technology for credible basis and interest. I have heard that you are working on holograms at Stark Industries. There are papers on holographic tech, but most are regarding theoretical or limited basic structure applications. If you can involve your findings from an extensively practical environment, it would make all the difference. **

  
**Sincerely,**  
  
**Dr. Briar Cortega**  
  
**Head of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department**  
  
**Massachusetts Institute of Technology**  


Quentin closed his eyes and dropped his head onto the table.

He couldn’t write a paper on his project, not even with him heading it. Stark had too much involvement with it, Quentin’s findings would just revolve around Stark’s changes. His dissertation would end up being a chapter from Stark’s life.

Quentin couldn’t just let his career be about Tony Stark. That was a disappointing way to live.

New Year came and went. 2012 was a busy part of his life. Quentin found himself cursing Stark’s new app since they were heavily relying on it to get the holograms running with a shorter lag time. Rendering was also far easier now that the team forewent the tedious procedure of having to analyze every detail of an object from every angle. Working on 2D screens was their agreed stepping off point.

Quentin had gotten the idea to catch images from every angle, from the movie ‘The Matrix’. Mind-bending reality, mind-blowing execution.

The iconic ‘dodging bullets’ scene had been created using hundreds of cameras placed around the actor as he moved. Modern CGI was a faraway dream in the 1990s. They had to rely on smarts and creativity to showcase incredible scenes. Cinematography was first class.

The Holo Team built tiny sensors for their experiment, placing it all around the lab. Every camera angle was chosen and monitored until it brought the desired results. Quentin breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, they were getting somewhere.

Once static images had achieved a record shortest rendering time, they moved on to videos.

Quentin walked onto the floor, one day in late April, to find the office in a delighted buzz.

Marion waved him over. “Hey, guess what?!”

“What?” he chuckled, as Taylor bounced up to him, carrying his cell phone.

“We have a couple of days off next week!” he cheered.

It was the norm to see 6 ft 3 Taylor Wittler jump around with the energy of a child. Quentin took the phone from him and scrolled down the company-sent email.

**May Day!**

**Stark Industries is and has always been proud of its employees for the work they put in. We have always been regarded as one of the most successful companies in the highest tier class in the world. This is no small feat!**

**But starting next week, we are going green! After several months of refining arc reactor technology, SI owner, Tony Stark, and his private team of engineers have changed the clean energy game forever. Stark Tower will run on only arc reactor energy from May 3rd, 2012!**

**Two months ago, we had advised all the departments to create backups of their extensive data on our servers. This is merely a precaution. The switch from electricity to clean energy will cause a five-second blackout through the tower.**

**To avoid any mishaps or data loss, CEO Potts has advised a week off, starting from May 1st to May 5th. We shall see you on the 6th, where we will work at the world center of clean energy! **

There was more information, but Quentin’s mind was stuck on the continuous days off.

There was only so much he could work from home. Quentin needed to perfect the HDRR for the video simulations. There was no way he could download Stark’s app on his home system. His laptop would blow up from the amount of data streaming in.

“How’re we supposed to finish the video graphics next week?” Quentin groaned.

Sidney O’Connor flicked his shoulder. “Chill, man! We can just get that done later. Arc reactor tech is faster. We could even get the energy boost and make the sensors function instantaneously with that kind of energy. Plus, we get extra days off with full pay! It’s a win-win!”

Marion grinned. “Did you know that when Howard Stark first designed the reactor, it was just a flashy thing for the company to boost sales? All it did was sit in front of the main entrance where anyone could look in and see the pretty blue lights.”

“Is that some sort of inspiring tale? Quentin muttered. “Stark Jr. got the thing up and running, doing cartwheels. Yippee.”

Sidney gawked at him. “Arc reactor tech powers the Iron Man and War Machine suits! That’s beyond incredible! Do you even know what force those suits have?”

Taylor pitched in and Quentin thanked him silently. “I think what our pouty boss here means, is that after all that debacle on Stark shutting down SI’s weapons’ division, he goes around to build multiple suits with scary weapons features. One suit with an egomaniacal billionaire, and one suit with a Colonel in the Air Force. That’s seriously terrifying if you think about it.”

“Oh man!” Tess laughs, joining the conversation. “You guys remember the ‘I’ve just privatized world peace!’ speech?”

Everyone burst out laughing. Oh yeah, that had been a day for popcorn. Watching Justin Hammer of Hammer Industries get slammed on live television, watching the Senator be ridiculed. It had been a ridiculous performance. But the statement about peace privatization gave Quentin stitches in his side.

“Alright, alright!” cried Quentin. “Let’s get back to work. Start on the light interference on sensors 250 through 270. Let’s finish what we can this week.”

It was a good thing that they didn’t come to work on May 4th, Friday. Star Wars fans had gone for Comic-Con, families got together for an end-of-the-week outing. Quentin had gone to Massachusetts to personally speak to Dr. Cortega about his hopeful thesis. 

They had a good chat. The woman approved of Quentin’s realistic endeavor of focusing on camera sensors that he developed for his holo project. It was a good topic, but Quentin knew he would need to get a better visualization on holograms if he wanted to produce an award-winning dissertation.

He was walking out of the campus of MIT when his phone began to ping with many, many notifications.

There was news from New York.

A large scale attack on New York. Everyone was talking about it. The photos of blown-up buildings, the smoke and wreckage made Quentin’s stomach swoop low. It reminded him of 2001.

Aliens were real.

Victoria was the first to pick up his frantic calls.

“Hello? Quentin?”

“Oh thank god! Are you okay? Were you at the tower? Did you hear from anyone else?”

“I’m good. Ugh! My place’s in Brooklyn. The battle happened in Midtown Manhattan.”

Quentin coughed. “Battle? Like… battle with the aliens? Was Thor really there?”

Victoria launched into a spiel. Quentin listened in disbelief about the flying aliens, the portal in the sky, the fights, the explosions, the destruction. She talked about the heroes who helped people, the ones on the ground, and the superheroes who saved Midtown… Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, the Hulk (freakin’ Hulk!), Thor, and...

Iron Man?

“He took a freaking nuke into the portal, Quentin! There are gifs online, check ‘em!”

Quentin stammered. “It...no way, Tori! It couldn’t have been Stark! Maybe someone else was in the suit. It could have been War Machine -”

“Nuh-uh! It was Stark. He fell out just as it closed. All the aliens died at the same time! It was unbelievable! He almost died too. The Hulk saved him!”

Quentin’s mouth gaped open for a couple of seconds. That sounded nothing like Stark.

Maybe it was the adrenaline? Flying in the suit would be an absolute rush. Quentin could only imagine feeling that high, feeling above the laws of physics, above the laws of man.

“I felt sick watching the news,” Victoria continued, unaware that Quentin wasn’t listening. “The casualty report is bad. They’re digging up bodies from under buildings… it’s sickening.”

Quentin sat on the twin bed in his hotel room. Stark wouldn’t have flown into space for kicks. He obviously had had a plan. And it worked. The end.

Not many people saw it that way.

The world exploded in a couple of hours. News about the superheroes spread across the globe. The Avengers, they called the six people, one of them a god (another alien too, a good one apparently), one a former assassin, one a master class spy, one a literal monster with rage issues, and the fifth a billionaire who believed to be above everyone he met.

Captain America was the only one who fit the bill, besides Thor. Quentin had no idea what the world was coming to. There were murals on the walls, songs written about the Battle for New York, romanticizing the Avengers at every turn. Comic books churned out with ridiculous deity-like worship of the heroes. T-shirts and bumper stickers spouted caricatures of the six faces.

A brilliant marketing strategy.

Stark Industries stocks went up and broke a record hit in sales. The governments of many countries called in to speak highly of the Avenger Initiative.

Quentin took the train back home. He had a feeling that the incident would only make Stark even more insufferable than usual.

**~~~~~**

By December 2013, the first phase of the project was ready for launch. Quentin stared at the small sleek box filled with thousands of button-sized sensors that could capture innumerable photographs and videos, which when superimposed by their unique HoloTech program, could form three dimensional results.

Home run!

Quentin wrote up a summary of the final complete simulation they ran and attached a 3D link to the mail. He sent the mail and looked up from his desk and his team cheered and congratulated each other on the success. 

He stood up and called for their attention. “Night out at Sam’s tomorrow! Drinks on me!”

The team whooped and whistled. Quentin laughed and clapped Marion on the back. Taylor leaped up to her, caught her by the shoulders and planted a kiss on her.

Sam’s Pub was a cozy little establishment close to Quentin’s apartment. He reached the place by eight in the evening and found four from his team occupying one of the large corner booths. Tess was already chugging a mug of beer.

Taylor immediately pointed at Tess, “She started! I told her to wait for you!”

Quentin rolled his eyes. “I’m sure you did. I’m sure you didn’t goad her.”

Marion and Sidney snorted.

When the rest of the team filed in, Quentin ordered three bottles of champagne.

He stood up while the others began to clink their cutlery against their flutes.

“Yeah, yeah. Settle down. I just wanted to say that when I began this project, it was nothing more than a six-page proposal. Now, we’re lightyears ahead of what the world has and it’s definitely better than what I’d imagined. The most difficult part of the process is done! We got the tech to function without a single glitch! I can’t wait for the six sigma order to report on our project because it’s just. That. Good!”

Sidney whooped.

“I know we’ve got four more stages to go, but now that we’ve got it up and running, it’s gonna be smarter. Yeah, there’s probably more headaches on the way, and more work hours - ”

“Overtime!” Sonia cheered and everyone laughed.

Quentin raised his flute. “We’re one of the best teams at SI. We got this done! It’s in the bag. We just need to keep working at the energy we already have. The worst is over, but the road’s still rocky. It’s going to be some of the best years of our lives, I guarantee it! To us!”

“To us!” Everyone agreed, downing the champagne merrily. Quentin sat back down as Marion leaned forwards.

“Oh, I have to talk about our lead, guys.”

Everyone began cheering again and Quentin grinned, emptying one of the champagne bottles.

Marion smiled at Quentin. “I’m glad to be working in your team, Quentin. It’s been amazing, and I’ve learned a lot. I love the energy of this team, I love the hours we spend at work and outside. I just love you guys!”

Quentin grinned. “We love you too, Marion. You’ve also drifted from the point.”

“The point is that this project isn’t great just because it’s got cool, sciencey revolutionary tech. It’s got amazing people running it, it’s got a brilliant team lead who knows how to approach a problem in different ways. Quentin, what I’ve learned from you is that just because an issue might mess up our day, doesn’t mean the day is wasted. I’ve learned to maneuver around a problem when tackling it head-on doesn’t work. I’ve figured to climb over an obstacle when it just can’t be avoided. I’ve learned that a situation can seem bad one way, but amazing in another. It’s all about perception and how we work with what’s dealt to us. I look forward to the next few years because this team is worth more than the project. Thank you, Quentin!”

“To Quentin Beck!” Taylor screamed and everyone followed. Quentin hugged Marion, feeling his heart swell by three sizes.

The good mood lasted an entire week until one morning when Quentin woke up to a company-wide alert sent to all employees.

Stark was dead?

Quentin turned on the news and watched as news anchors spoke about Stark’s famed Malibu mansion being attacked.

**Iron Man presumed dead.**

Quentin blinked. He turned on his phone and texted Danielle Sadusky while receiving messages from the group chat.

**Tess:** Janice told me to not go to the office today. There was a riot last night. It was insane!

**Taylor:** Yeah, Gutes said the same thing. @Quentin did you hear anything new?

**Marion:** Did you see the statement he made yesterday, though? I’m def not going. It doesn’t look safe. 

**Quentin:** Don’t come in today. R&D’s not the only division to log off. Potts is still in Malibu, so wait for HR to confirm attendance. Wait till Friday.

**Sonia:** Or we can just take a few extra days off before Christmas :P

**Tess:** He could really be dead. This isn’t funny.

**Taylor:** I’m with Sonia. Stark’s press statement was ridonculous. He’s the only one in the world who’d say something like that.

Quentin frowned and switched channels on his TV till he found what his team had been referring to.

Stark was standing by his car, the defiant, displeased look visible through his flamboyant shades. He had about ten mics shoved near his face.

_ **“Here's a little holiday greeting I've been wanting to send to the Mandarin. I just didn't know how to phrase it until now. My name is Tony Stark and I'm not afraid of you. I know you're a coward, so I've decided,”** _

He took off the glasses, like a boss move. Quentin stared, mind going blank.

_ **“... that you just died, pal. I'm gonna come get the body. There's no politics here; it's just good old-fashioned revenge. There's no Pentagon; it's just you and me. And on the off-chance you're a man, here's my home address: 10880, Malibu Port, 90265. I'll leave the door unlocked.”** _

Stark snatched a phone from one of the guys recording him and threw it against a wall, smashing it into pieces.

_ **“Bill me.”** _

He quickly got into his car and drove off, tires peeling away from the hoard of reporters.

The news channel switched clips, next showing a shaky video capture of a large white mansion perched on a cliffside. Quentin stared at the screen which now showcased some helicopters in the distance, one of them sending a missile right at the house. The building exploded, a piano flew out and smashed against the helicopter, more missiles were launched, the mansion finally tumbled into the ocean. 

Quentin threw his phone back onto the bed.

The idiot just gave his home address to the world, while threatening an international terrorist. No wonder his house got bombed.

Without Stark’s attestation, the team wouldn’t be able to progress onto the next phase of their hologram project.

Quentin groaned. Did Stark like making his life so difficult?

Stark came back from the dead, took down the terrorist organization, saved the president, yadda yadda yadda.

Quentin wondered if some guardian angel was looking over the billionaire. There wasn’t any actual reason _why_ there should be a guardian angel, but suppose there was one, she’d be working overtime. The man courts danger and death, baits people with lots of firepower, still comes out fine. He also manages to do something heroic like saving the POTUS which means SI stocks had a wonderful time falling and rising like ideal surfing waves throughout the whole ordeal.

It took till January for the first phase of Quentin’s project to be approved. He was still waiting for the go-ahead for the launch. For some reason, Stark had not sent his digital signature to be verified.

Then, the man himself appeared on Quentin’s floor.

“Beck, walk with me,” Stark said, barely even looking at Quentin before turning to strut down the corridor.

Quentin had to hurry to catch up. Stark had flagged down the elevator and held the doors open for him.

“Morning, sir. How was your leave?” Quentin asked, hoping he sounded polite enough.

“Good, good,” Stark mumbled. He still wore those stupid glasses in the elevator. Quentin’s eyes quickly drifted over his chest, trying to see if it looked concave with the absence of the implanted arc reactor.

Stark looked over to the buttonless console, “JARVIS, seventy-second floor.”

Quentin nearly did a double-take. The 72nd floor was one of the newer spaces in the tower. It had been renovated after the Battle for New York, but hadn’t been assigned to any of the departments. Rumor has it that Stark had let Dr. Bruce Banner set up his labs there.

The elevator doors opened and Quentin was just preparing himself to meet Banner or really, any of the Avengers, or…

The room was thrice as large as the team’s lab downstairs. Stark walked in, clapping his hands to activate all the lights.

Quentin followed him into the immense room. He shook his ears which had popped on the ascent up.

It was definitely a lab. But the equipment looked brand new. Everything shone like pretty pennies and Quentin gaped at the holographic 2D screens available for use. The tables held new, sleek systems, the latest Stark PCs. The black shine on the electronics made Quentin flinch. Everywhere he looked, everything seemed to cost a million dollars apiece. There was a glass chamber to one corner, the size of Quentin’s living room in his apartment. The wall on one side of the room was entirely glass. The floor to ceiling windows provided a north-east view of New York City. Quentin could spot Central Park on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other.

The room was the most advanced setting he had ever laid his eyes on in real life.

“Like it?” Stark asked, arms behind his back. He rolled onto the balls of his feet. On anyone else, the gesture might have made them look nervous, but Stark just seemed to be in his element, as though he regularly introduced people to the best labs in the country.

“It’s highly advanced, Mr. Stark. Looks ready for heavy-duty data filtering or software coding.”

Stark huffed. “Yeah. Well, I brought you up here since I’m gonna need you to show your team the way up to this lab. I reviewed your latest simulation run. Very promising. The sensors adapted perfectly to my software. Sadusky and Esteban sent me details of your signal issues and particle light glitches - ”

“We solved the glitches,” Quentin added immediately.

Stark raised an eyebrow. “Yes. I saw that. You’d rewritten some of my code to change the filtering sequence.”

He gave Quentin a look. The latter felt his heart leap up to his throat.

“I mentioned it in our emails. I didn’t change your original codes. I took a copy of it and reworked some lines -”

“No, I saw that. Pretty impressive. That kind of initiative works, Beck. Good job.”

Quentin nearly froze. That was the first time Stark had paid him a compliment.

“Sorted the bugs out, worked through the glitches, the holograms look stable and didn’t scatter too far even with interference from solid objects,” Stark summarised the progress report. “Phase one is good to go. We’ll be placing them in Starkphones starting from the summer release. 47 sensors around the camera slots?”

“We’re working it up to 53.”

“Ideal number would be 70." Stark reached out to brush a soft layer of dust from one of the computer screens. “Bring your team up here, get the tech up and running. You can perform simulations in the experimental room.”

He pointed at the glass chamber to the corner. “It removes unnecessary light and other external interference. Find a way to place 70 sensors around the slots without compromising the other physical components of the Starkphone model. We’ll progress with phase two once that's done.”

“Yes, sir!” Quentin agreed, nodding and swallowing at the same time. “We’ll be working with Game Design, then?”

“Some of Game Design will also be moving up to the 72nd. They’ll take the lab right next to the elevator. Walking distance. I find that face-to-face conversations work better than phones or conference calls. I’m a dinosaur like that.”

Quentin stared.

“Tis a joke, Beck. Relax," Stark smirked at him. "Your work speaks for itself. You’re getting this lab to work on the project with better equipment. You and Guterman will be reporting directly to me about the Starkphone progress, starting from next week. He has the schedule, get it and inform your team. Have you thought about hiring more people for Phase 2?”

It took an extra second for Quentin to get his voice. “I’ve had that thought. Some of my team can work with two or three newbies and get them up to speed in a few weeks.”

“Then start the hiring process. The Head of Security can help with that. Also get Hogan to update your keycards. Floors above 60 need higher access levels. Welcome to the 72nd, Mr. Beck.” Stark gave him a brusque nod.

“Thank you, Mr. Stark! I’ll get right on it!” Quentin’s heart soared at the changes. This was the greatest thing he could have ever hoped for!

It was a privilege to work on the 72nd. The AC circulated better air, the amenities were great, Tea, coffee, and hot chocolate was provided for free in the pantry, so was peanut butter and toast. Quentin often skipped breakfast and went straight to the office to eat while he worked. Many others did the same. The pantry led out to an open balcony with high glass walls. It was an absolute treat to have a quick meal while staring out at the incredible skyline of the city.

Not all of Game Design shifted up. Gutes’s team was the only one who relocated to their new floor. Along with Quentin’s bunch and the new hires, they formed a group of nearly fifty people. 

A surprising addition was Janice Lincoln from Drone Tech Division.

“There’s a two-week training where you’ll be shadowing Sidney as she works on the program. You’ll be assisting her with sensor scanning,” Quentin informed Janice after she had submitted her department shifting papers.

“Sounds great. I’ve been reading what you guys are doing here. It looks so amazing!” Janice said, looking around the massive room.

Quentin pointed out Sidney at her station. “You can grab a chair and sit with her for a bit. But… Jan, you okay?”

Janice looked up, an odd expression flitting across her face, “I’m good. Yeah. It’s just… the drones are being micromanaged directly by an outsourced group. We lost a lot of creative hold over it. Will keeps suggesting us to find new positions. And since, you guys are hiring…”

She shrugged and left it at that.

The next few months flew by on gilded wings.

They began phase 2 of their Holo Tech with small favorable outcomes. Quentin had managed to juggle the tedious job of writing divisive papers on his sensors, while also leading full-color scopes on their previously blue-tinted holograms. 

He was now was staring at a 3D image of a sleeping kitten. Marion had brought over a kitten she’d been fostering for a live test subject. 

_This is another level of humane animal testing_, Quentin wondered.

All the kitten did was nap in its soft blanket in the glass chamber. The room had been fitted with over 2500 sensors. 

Outside the room, Sidney and Janice monitored and captured it’s sweet breathing motions in real-time. The 3D result was impeccable. The striped pelt of the kitten, the quivering whiskers, the small claws that kept twitching over the soft lines of the violet blanket wrapped around the kitten, the body’s inhale and exhale that changed the position of the whole set-up at a microscopic level - everything was caught and projected in front of Quentin. He couldn’t see a hair out of place.

“Live subject capture is a success,” Quentin hummed to the delight of his team. “How are the sensors holding?”

“Data transmission is stable,” Sidney reported.

“Any issues with memory storage?”

Taylor stood up with his tab. “Enhanced storage capabilities are functioning as projected. It’s still above the limit, though.”

Quentin nodded. “We’ll be working on that next. But we have to test this with human faces as soon as possible.”

The launch of the newest Starkphone model was postponed by nearly two months. Quentin wasn’t too harried by that. He had enough on his plate without having to worry about the PR. That was part of Gutes’ objective. 

The reception was enormous. The sales rocketed like never before. Quentin’s team got complimentary discounts on their phone purchases. It’s not like SI would hand them over for free. 50% off was still very tantalizing.

Gutes had slapped an arm over Quentin’s shoulder, as they watched the numbers on a tall screen change with every public purchase of the phone. 

“So, how does it feel to see your work in the sticky hands of toddlers, Beckingham?”

Quentin laughed. “No way would parents give these models to their kids! There’s only so many times you can drop them before the sensors pop out.”

Gutes snorted. “Trust me. Check some Starkphone fail compilations, you’ll be singing a different tune.”

It had been a successful day with a short team outing later on to celebrate. But when Quentin went home, he opened a YouTube tab to see if Gutes had been telling the truth.

There was a whole list of fail compilations. Quentin clicked on the latest and it featured a mom handing her two-year-old the actual model that Quentin had worked on for months with multiple review cycles, migraine-inducing issues, and several meltdowns in the two teams - 

The toddler on-screen screeched when he saw a replication of his own head in 3D. He threw the phone onto the floor while the mom laughed. The views climbed with every click of the refresh button and Quentin did the one thing you’re never supposed to do when you’re watching a video about something you actually care about.

He checked the comment section.

**DarudeDude** _The kid gets the idea. Toss capitalism!_

**knockonwood** _these stupid things cost more than my salary three months combined_

**stantheman** _i was just getting used to video calling_

**Delete The Force** _I just got one now. Can’t wait to chuck it into a woodchipper!_

**Destiny Calls** _Instead of selling unnecessary luxuries at the wonderful cost of 999, why can’t stark just make sure people can even afford a house before having to get a phone about as heavy as a paperweight??_

**wetsnowslush** _Great. I can now see all my acne from all sides!_

**RockandSushi** _This is the most disgusting series of events ive seen. A multibillion dollar company invests thousands of labor hours and millions of dollars to create an extravagant piece of tech thats used for phone calls, used in only **their** phones thats the most expensive shit on the planet. The commercial stuff is then played off for gags by people who have thousand dollar trees in the backyard of all their summer houses. Its such an obvious story of haves and have-nots._

Quentin shook his head. Resolving to stay away from random comments and focus on actual critics’ reviews, he spent the rest of the day reordering his schedule for the upcoming phase.

One of Stark’s ideas for the holo tech was to recreate images and videos from old photographs or tapes of lower quality. Easy enough, but the focus labor involved in filling all the missing portions would be time taking.

Quentin didn’t see the appeal of using hundred million dollar holo tech to restore and colorize old photos. He chalked it up to an eccentric distraction and placed it as a side project. In the meantime, his team went onto update sound output from the current hologram models.

Time passed, the budget for their team rose, more people joined the venture and Quentin was on top of the world. 

Sokovia happened.

Quentin had been at home, writing reviews on the latest simulations when the network locked him out. The company issued another week off for all the departments as everything was fixed up. 

The news dramatized the whole thing, but there was barely anything left to the imagination. Stark had created a murder bot with a weapon from the Battle of New York. The bot went on to hold the country of Sokovia hostage by lifting it off the surface and dropping it thousands of feet.

You wouldn’t get such a story even if it was spun by comic book writers on LSD.

It took weeks for the backlash to even begin to settle down. Of course, everything was mediated by Potts’ incredible PR team and most other employees received judgy faces from strangers when said they worked for Stark.

And yet, under all the politics, the issues and headaches, the hero worship rose again.

Stark made his own problem, and went ahead to solve it by building another super bot, who, through dumb luck probably, decided to side with humans. There was so many levels of wrongness that Quentin didn’t even want to delve into it.

He stuck to the solid thought that Stark needed no more of an ego boost than he already has.

The best thing about the whole week was that the Avengers finally relocated away from the tower. 

On a gloomy Tuesday, Quentin was walking around the lab to find Janice and Gutes having an intense conversation. He diverted his ears to avoid whatever lover’s quarrel they were in, but Gutes spotted him and yelled, “Beckingham!”

He dropped his bag onto a desk and made his way over to the couple. Janice was holding up a neatly wrapped present. Gutes had his hands shoved into his pockets. They were standing close enough to indicate that the quarrel hadn’t pitted them firmly against each other.

“Is that for me?” Quentin asked making grabby hands for it. Janice grinned, snatching the gift away and placing it in her desk drawer.

“It’s Riva’s birthday,” Gutes explained. “He said he was too busy to have a party or a get-together, so we thought we’d go over to his floor and hand him his gift now.”

Damn it. Quentin had forgotten about Will’s birthday. He’d been too engrossed with work. He quickly whipped out his phone and placed an order for a two-in-one jacket. Will had shown interest in that a while back.

But Janice’s words surprised him, “Did you know his team cleared out from the 43rd floor?”

He stared, “What?!”

Gutes shrugged. “The whole Drone Tech Division relocated. 43rd’s being used for orientation.”

“But where’s… was he fired?” Quentin’s voice dropped to a whisper.

Janice looked troubled. “I thought that too, but we called him and he said that he’d meet us at the Spot and explain it over dinner.”

The Spot was a small restaurant/pub all the way in Queens. Quentin had never been there, but Gutes had, so he’d be giving him and Janice a ride.

Once the day was over, the three walked through the basement parking lot. It was eight, just after the shift change. Quentin swung his arms to gather a bit of heat in them when a sleek, silver car drove up to the side and slowed down beside them.

The window rolled down and Quentin’s eyes bugged out.

“Will?!”

“Shhh!” Will urged, looking worried. “Get in.”

Janice blinked. “Um, what -”

“In! The car!”

Gutes pointed at the gleaming interiors. “Nice ride. It doesn’t seem your style, though.”

“Will the three of you get in, please!? Now!”

Quentin figured he would regret this, but was too curious to let it go. They got in and Will drove out of the tower, heading north.

“Will?” Gutes called. “The Spot is in the other direction.”

“We’re not going to the Spot.”

The bright lights on the roads illuminated the entire place. Quentin squinted against the glares of oncoming cars.

Quentin pointed at a colorful sticker on the side of the windshield. “Did you hire this car, Will? What’s wrong with yours?”

“Are you kidnapping us?” Janice asked, voice dry.

Gutes snorted, clearly tickled. Then he had a worried look on his face. “You’re not actually kidnapping us, are you?”

Will didn’t take his eyes off the road. “We just need a quiet place to talk.”

They drove in silence for a full minute before taking a turn and stopping in front of a sleazy looking bar.

It was like an underground arena for illegal deals. The music was loud, blasting in his ears. Quentin grimaced as they took their seats in a corner booth. The leather and the table was sticky.

“Prime spot for a birthday party,” Gutes nodded at the crowd of youngsters headbanging in front of a live band in the center of the room.

“I just didn’t want to be overheard.”

Quentin raised an eyebrow. “Are you being tracked again?”

Will shook his head. “I checked. There’s nothing on me, but if I’m being tailed -”

“Again! Will, this is illegal, we need to go to the cops!”

“Jan, I signed an NDA on this. I’ll be breaking the law if I tell you too much,” Will groaned

Quentin looked up at Janice and Gutes, incredulous. But Will’s next words stunned them all.

“We shifted floors because we’re working on weaponizing the drones.”

The whisper was barely heard over the heart-pounding music. Quentin thought he misunderstood the statement.

“No.” Janice leaned back. “You can’t… Stark said -”

“It’s secret. Stark’s been developing short-range ballistics that each drone can accommodate. It’s part of his Iron Legion security.”

“He destroyed the Iron Legion after the Mandarin attacks -”

“And what about the whole thing with Sokovia?!” Quentin argued. “All that just proves he shouldn’t be building more stuff like that!”

Will flinched. “He’s written a program to work with immense offense capabilities. The drones are a back-up in case his suit isn’t enough,” Will explained as he ordered a round of shots.

Quentin stared at the table, the news swirling around his brain. He remembered the news broadcast, the Tweets, the debates on national television, all about the conflict of Avenger intervention in different countries over the world. The presence of military-grade enhanced individuals acting for the greater good was a terrifying thought. 

The capital city of Sokovia didn’t exist anymore. Because somebody had carved the entire territory right out of the ground and carried it into the stratosphere before dropping it. 

After everything, after being proved wrong about peace privatization, after threatening the Mandarin, after using space technology to create a high tier artificial intelligence that went wrong and nearly destroyed the world… Stark was weaponizing his drone division, on the down low.

Quentin wondered if there was something truly wrong with the man. People didn’t just go on to cause problem after problem for no discernible reason, right?

“He sounds obsessed,” Gutes muttered.

Quentin snapped his eyes back up to him. “What?”

“Stark. He keeps going back to building something powerful, trying to surpass the arc reactor. It’s like he’s obsessed with creating the next best thing.”

Janice shook her head. “That doesn’t justify anything! It just makes him more terrifying. Will, is this illegal?”

Will bowed his head over the drink. “I’m not sure. It might be for the Avengers. You’ve heard of SHIELD?”

“Yeah, they started the Avenger Initiative. Peggy Carter and Captain America founded it.”

“No, it was Carter and Howard Stark who founded SHIELD. They’re like the MIB. The real ones. They handle all of the country’s secrets. It’s like the last line of defense, higher up than the CIA and FBI,” Will explained. 

Janice frowned, “I know SHIELD got taken down last year, after Black Widow released all those files online.” 

Gutes’s eyes lit up. “Oh, right! I remember that! There was that crash in the Potomac. Those… whatchamacallit? Helicarriers!”

“That’s right. SHIELD helped get many of the Sokovians to safety before they destroyed the city in the air. That gave them an edge. It could have given Stark more power to build an extensive drone system.”

Quentin’s throat burned from the shot. He felt restless. What was he supposed to do with this knowledge?

No, that was the wrong question. There was really nothing he could do about it. There was nothing anyone could do about it.

Stark and the Avengers operated at a far higher level of authority. As long as they kept ‘saving’ the world, he doubted anyone could challenge that authority.

**~~~~~**

For the first time in many years, Quentin was glad he was wrong.

2016 rolled around with growing international tensions involving the Avengers. Public leaders were speaking out loud about the unruly acts of the superheroes. There were prominent discussions about the border crossing ‘heroism’ that America, more than any other country, suffered from.

Even though Stark had publicly stated he was no longer involved in Avenger business, he was still Iron Man, and so operated as a consultant for SHIELD. That caused a visible rift between Stark and Potts, especially since Potts started to pick up more international meetings to just escape the country and get more distance from him.

So, when Lagos happened, when Scarlet Witch lost control of her powers and killed several civilians, everything came to a head.

Quentin remembered waking up one cloudy morning to trending tweets about a new document called the Sokovia Accords. That had been more of a wake-up call than his usual espresso.

It might not be much, but Quentin tried to imagine several global leaders getting together to try and put a leash around Tony Stark. The visual was strangely hysterical. Nothing would hold Stark down from coming up with another tactic to mess things up.

Of course, it came as an absolute shock when Quentin heard that Stark was supporting the Accords and had publicly acclaimed the UN panel for writing it up.

PR move, Quentin figured. Or maybe Stark was just doing it to get back together with Potts. Whatever. Quentin had no time to think about that, because they were wrapping up on phase three of their Holo Tech. 

**Section B4.1**

**As an employee of Stark Industries, you are required to devote your entire time, attention, and effort to the betterment of the business of the company. You shall not, during your employment within SI, directly or indirectly engage in any part-time or full-time business or position of monetary benefit with an office exclusive from SI.**

Phase 4 was a combination of bioengineering science and the revolutionary holographic technology.

Quentin had never thought anything like this could exist. They were using holograms to portray actual memories, taken straight from the subject’s brain. Replications of the memory was created first by actually sketching out the scene, then bringing the set to life through videos, images, and a lot of creativity.

The result was an actual reconstruction of conscious memory, projected right in front of you.

A new field of augmented reality utilizing all aspects of sensations where the subject could walk into a room built from their memory and revisit what was said, all the things that had conspired…

Stark himself had headed the scientists who worked with Quentin’s team to bring the project to life.

This was the future. This was some Harry Potter shit. You could be standing in your memory and watch the whole thing play out. You could run your hand through the projected pixels hovering in the air to form the hologram. You could almost feel the warmth of the pixel light over your skin.

And Quentin was the project leader of one half of the whole group that had built this. Years of back-breaking, mind-melding work culminated in something historic and revolutionary. Quentin was soaring.

The phase was ready for launch. They were packing up all the materials needed for a simulation since the launch was going to be in Massachusetts, at Quentin’s Alma Mater in fact.

Quentin was going over his speech notes that he had prepared for MIT. He would be announcing the release of the Memory Augmented Reality System, or M.A.R.S. as his team liked to call it unofficially.

It would be the highlight of his life. Getting to invite the world to a brilliant, mind mapping program that was more than what anyone could even have dreamt of a few short years ago. Granted that he’d never thought to utilize holograms with any bio-related fields, but this was just one step closer to getting properly funded for the other grand ideas he’d kept to himself.

You don’t show all your cards at once.

Quentin was just about ready, checking his drive for any missing assets when his phone rang.

It was Stark.

Quentin shut down his system and took the call.

“Mr. Stark, we’re nearly finished packing up, here. Is there -”

“No, not about the packing. It’s about the presentation. I’ll be doing the delivery. We have representatives from the Board who’ll be in the crowd. I’ll present the project and move on to the second part, no mishaps.”

Quentin nearly stuttered. His stomach dropped right through the floor and he felt queasy. Stark sounded so standoffish and cold, as though he were simply dropping a fact of life, and not realizing that he was taking Quentin’s chance at announcing his project to the best institute in the world.

“Mr. Stark, I can just as easily present the tech for the Board. The September Foundation -”

“We’re on a time crunch. It’s best if we bring only one person on stage for the simulation and the inauguration of the Grant,” Stark explained, not perceiving the crash sight of Quentin’s brain. “You can supervise the staff and get everything set up, I’ll take it over from there. I’ll also need the teleprompter, just put your notes up and we’ll be good.”

The call ended and Quentin almost felt his eyes burn from the absolute distress that suddenly bubbled up. His chest went tight, his hands shook, cold sweat broke over his skin and a terrible taste filled his mouth.

**~~~~~**

Potts wouldn’t be coming.

Quentin stared at her email blankly. She had canceled the day before the announcement. She was supposed to be on stage with Stark after he talked about the September Foundation.

What had Stark said? They were on a time crunch and only one person need be on stage.

He wouldn’t have kicked Potts out. She mattered to him, unlike Quentin, unlike literally anyone in the world.

No, Potts bailed on Stark.

The situation made him smile inward. If Quentin forgot to update the teleprompter to exclude Pott’s lines… that was an innocent mistake.

The auditorium was filled with thousands of students. Quentin and Marion stood behind the curtain. Quentin had his tab open in front, making a quick check of their set up. Marion confirmed that everything was in its place. The hologram was designed to fill the styrofoam set up of a small room-sized box, outfitted with thousands of sensors relaying everything to Quentin’s screen.

Marion came to stand by him. She hopped on her toes, unable to stop grinning.

“Excited much?” Quentin teased her.

She exhaled a quick puff of air. “I get a little nervous on stage. How are you so good at this?”

Quentin tried to not drop his smile. “I’m not even presenting.”

“Not just that… you look like you’re always in charge. Like everything is going the way you planned. How are you so confident?”

Quentin cursed Stark in his head. “If everything did go the way I planned, I’d be announcing the project, Marion. But I’m not. It sucks, to be honest.”

“Sorry about that.” At least someone apologized for Stark’s behavior. “You should be the one out there, talking about this. This is your creation, more than Stark’s.”

It is.

Quentin shrugged. “Yeah, well it’s his money.”

“But it’s your brain.”

Quentin agreed wholeheartedly. It was his brain, heart, blood, sweat, and tears that went into conceptualizing the whole thing.

Marion looked around furtively. “You sure you can’t convince him to let you give a few words about it?”

"I didn’t have time to ask…”

“You should!” Marion said, suddenly energized. “Maybe he’ll reconsider! You were the one who pitched the idea to the Board, like years ago. You should be the one out there, doing the presentation!”

Quentin looked at Marion’s hopeful face, her eager expression, her young energy. He wished he could believe her and that Stark would decide to let him talk… but if he didn’t try, wasn’t that on him?

“Alright, I’ll ask. Hold this. Turn the sensors on in five.”

Marion took the tablet and waved happily at him, whispering, “Good luck!”

Quentin felt his smile freeze, but waved back. He walked into the wings and out the back door. Stark was standing in a long, quiet corridor, staring at his phone with a burning intensity. His stance screamed ‘Do Not Disturb’.

Wish Quentin luck. He was about to disturb.

He slicked back his hair and pulled on the collar of his coat jacket before calling, “Mr. Stark!”

Stark looked up from the screen. His open eyes were filled with an uncertain emotion that almost caught Quentin off guard.

In an instance, the professional demeanor fell across his face like a curtain and he pocketed his phone. “Is everything ready?”

“Just about. But if you’d like a moment, I have no problem with introducing the talk about the project.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Stark brushed past him, heading towards the stage door.

Quentin gritted his teeth. “Sir, I noticed that the members of the Board who are in the audience are the same who I pitched the Hologram project to, before the department was formed.”

Stark snorted. “It does take a good long while for certain old bland types to pass roles over to new blood.”

“What I mean is that it could be a good idea if I could present the very same project that I had pitched in the first place, Mr. Stark,” Quentin’s voice rose slightly.

Stark stopped right at the door, having registered the change in mood.

“That’s not entirely true, is it Beck?” Stark now sounded judgemental. “I can’t recall you mentioning anything about the binary augmentation or memory functions during your little pitch.”

“I’m talking about the Holo Tech.”

The politeness was gone. It had never really been there, everything was just a sham.

“The Holo Tech which would have taken you eighty years to build, let alone have it functioning in different fields with genuine direction," Stark snapped. “You’re here only because I enabled it. I wrote the program that let you render the start of it, I brought the team up to a better lab that’s worth more than what anyone else would have done with your department and your pitch. The bioengineering aspect is my brainchild -” 

“The only reason why you’re in charge is because you paid for it,” Quentin clapped back, glaring outright at him. “The project isn’t your brainchild. It’s the creation of scores of people, all of whose names I included for the teleprompter, but you’re going to ignore that, right?”

Stark glowered, jaw clenched, shoulders back, ready for a fight. “It’s a good thing we have time to mention fifty names. Oh wait! We don’t! The presentation would change from pioneering introduction to a snooze fest. No one wants to wait for the list of people behind the scenes, Beck. No one sits for the credits. They want to see the product and brand name. They want to see the faces on stage, not the title of people in the wings. Nobody cares about that. Nobody knows who you are, not unless you’re made of bright lights, a fancy name, and money,” Stark’s words echoed through the corridor, reverberating in Quentin’s head. 

“They’re also, not going to be pleased about the project if they read it off of paper, especially since you can’t claim it, Beck,” Stark ended with a vicious remark.

Quentin stared, not comprehending what the last sentence meant… until...

“My paper?”

“You’re hypothesis submission on sensor tech used for the project. That’s illegal. I could take action against you, you realize that?”

Quentin swallowed. “What…”

Stark huffed. “You began writing weeks ago! Cortega emailed me last month. Wanted to compliment me on how she enjoyed reading your work based on _my_ tech. Yeah, I know your favorite professor, I keep in touch with my institute too.”

Quentin’s dissertation… his initial hypothesis on the sensors _he’d_ built and coded, the work _he_ did... 

“The sensors are mine,” Quentin whispered.

“You used my resources to build them. You sat in my building, used my tech and money to structure and code them. They don’t belong to you, pal. Nothing does. You can’t write a paper on any part of a project that belongs to me. And you most certainly can’t work on anything that doesn’t fall under SI legalities,” Stark’s retort was a nail in the coffin. “You can’t write a paper while you work for me. Take a sabbatical if you want, but anything else violates the agreement. You remember that, Beck? The appointment letter came with a nice long agreement that you signed. You don’t get to lecture me on what belongs to you when you can’t even keep track of what you sign.”

Stark let his shoulders drop. He closed his eyes and jerked his head towards the door.

“That was harsh, but it was the truth. You wanted it, you know it now. Keep an eye on the readings. No glitches while I’m onstage.”

Stark left through the door and it took Quentin six seconds to gather his lead-filled legs to start working again. A cold fist squeezed his heart.

**Section B4.2**

**You also may not pursue learning or experiential courses to achieve certification during your employment at SI. An official letter of leave may be signed by your supervising manager to allow a sabbatical to support your certification course, of no less than three months. **

Quentin went on auto-pilot and walked back to the stage. He took the tab from a curious and confused Marion, ignoring her as he stood in the wings to check the activated projection of Stark’s mother, seated at a grand piano, in a gorgeous white-tiled room of gossamer curtains and a lounging twenty-one-year old Tony Stark on the couch.

Stark stepped out of the curtains that hid the projection from the audience. A thunderous applause could be heard from the stands. It went on and on. Stark started to speak, but the noise of the entire hall could not move through the fog in Quentin’s head. A painful and heavy fog that settled into his consciousness, a fog that would never be moved until rage took over.

He started the projection after Stark gave his introduction. Quentin watched as everyone did. The conversation between Howard and Tony Stark made the audience stare in wonder. Maria Stark sang with a dove’s voice, hair piled up in a beautiful bun, her entire persona a defiant contrast from her husband and son. Tony Stark took after Stark Sr. and it was so clear in the personality and mannerisms, it made Quentin feel sick.

Stark stood off to the opposite side, in the wings just like Quentin. They met each others gaze. Quentin stared at him blankly. Stark looked back, disinterested. Then he reached in and took out his sunglasses to put them on. He tapped the side of the glasses which began to glow in a soft blue light, exactly as Quentin’s tablet suddenly logged out the Holo Tech program.

Stark controlled the rest of the projection through his shades. Quentin tried to feebly access the network but failed even as the memory finished playing.

The lights came back on and Stark began speaking again. He took off the glasses as he stepped forward, through the hologram that was dissipating now.

Quentin was able to log in now, but what was the point? Stark was in charge.

Something pierced through the suffocating fog of Quentin’s mind.

"Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing or B.A.R.F. – God, I gotta work on that acronym. An extremely costly method of hijacking the hippocampus... to clear traumatic memories."

What?

Quentin look up and gaped at Stark, jaw slack, fog clearing instantly. His mind was perfectly blank now. No numbers, no information running.

"Barf,” Quentin said to himself. That’s what Stark said, to the thousand students drinking his words like nectar. That’s what he announced to the Board members sitting in the back.

Quentin’s life’s work, the thing he worked on for years, the dream he’d had in college, the project that should have Quentin’s name, not Stark’s, plastered over it… was now called ‘barf’.

**~~~~~**

A week later, after the shit show or whatever the hell happened in Germany with the other Avengers, Quentin stormed into Stark Industries with a 20 page printed dossier of everything he could find about the drones.

He was careful to exclude anything that looked like the leak could have come from Will. Quentin wasn’t about to throw him under a bus.

He marched right up to Potts’s office and barged in through her doors, even as her new secretary tried to stop him.

Pepper Potts looked up, stunned at the abrupt entrance.

Quentin knew he looked like a mess. He had taken six days of unplanned leave, with no excuse or warning of his absence. He’d spent days breaking through the firewalls of SI to drag out all the sordid secrets about the new weapons system Stark was developing.

And Potts was the only one with enough authority to stand up to Tony Stark.

“Mr. Beck!” Potts shouted, standing up, furious. “What the hell -”

“Stark is dealing weapons under the table,” Quentin responded and dropped the documents onto her desk. “He’s taken over the Drone Tech Division and repurposed the entire department.” 

She stared at the papers, blank. “The Drone Tech -”

“The drones are being weaponized,” Quentin continued, shuffling some of the papers away to bring up a file with images circled in red. He showed her the design work for missile placement in the drone’s body.

“This not only goes against the Accords that Stark signed, it also violates his terms with the government’s stance on weapon building. Stark’s creating a whole new weapon program, like the Iron Legion, except this time -”

“Mr. Beck -”

“This time,” Quentin raised his voice, frantically stabbing the papers with his finger. “He’s working on the tech under no one’s authority but his own. He’s not just building Iron Man suits in his private labs, he’s designing drones and leading a team of scientists to work on them under a bundle of NDAs! Most of them were the same ones who were contracted by Obadiah Stane to recreate a miniaturized version of the arc reactor in 2008!”

Potts flinched and gawked at him. “How do you know about that?”

“These scientists are working from a different site, not from Stark Tower,” Quentin went on. He knew he was running out of time, but he needed to make a defined impression. “The NDAs were signed without a close look at the fine print, but it limits their conversations about the drones with anyone outside the group. Stark’s holding them hostage through threat of legal punishment!”

Potts stared at the pages for a long time. Then she said, in a tone that was soft and heartbreaking, “Maisie, call security.”

If Quentin had been even slightly optimistic, he would hope that Potts was calling security to investigate Stark. But he knew that wasn’t it.

The secretary was already on the phone talking to Hogan on the other end. Potts looked up and said, “Beck, I need you to leave now.”

“You can’t be complacent about this!” Quentin yelled. “He’s… he’s obsessed, Potts! You know this! It’s always the next best creation for Stark. First the arc reactor, then the Iron Man suits, then the legion, then Ultron! Now the drones. Potts, he’s not going to stop until you make him stop! This is illegal and threatening! He’s going to link the weaponized drones to artificial intelligence! This makes Stark the single most dangerous person on the planet because he’s the only one who controls the AI! Potts! Pepper, you can’t let this happen!”

The doors slammed open and Quentin knew his time was up. He shoved some of the papers off the desk and grabbed another page that he’d used a highlighter on.

A pair of tall men in uniform appeared on either side of him. “Quentin Beck, please step away from Ms. Potts - ”

_“Read this!”_ Quentin shouted, beseeching her. “He saved everything on his personal server. Check the new AI he’s coding right now! He’s out of control, he’s losing it! You can’t let Stark keep doing this, he’ll destroy more than just one city this time!”

He threw the page in her face as the men grabbed his upper arms. Quentin began to struggle, trying to get one last word in.

“Stark’s dangerous! He doesn’t care about what all this can lead to! The drones can take out thousands of targets at once and he doesn’t even need to be there to get that done! Remember Insight! Project Insight!” Quentin gasped, being manhandled towards the door. Potts and her secretary were staring at him, distressed by the outburst. 

“TOTAL SURVEILLANCE! You’re the only one he’ll listen to! _You’re the only one who can stop him, Pepper!”_

He was hauled to the doors, dragged to the elevator, escorted down the floors, and then thrown out the building. 

**Section O**

**The terms of your employment contract detailed above are strictly confidential and should be considered as privileged information between yourself and the company.**

**We look forward to you joining us at the earliest. We are certain that you will find satisfaction, opportunity, and challenge in your budding career that will be moulded by Stark Industries.**


	3. Earth Discarded, In Towards Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If he needed to scrounge up what was left of his dignity, Quentin would need to pick himself up, dust off the debris of his ‘instability’, and walk away.
> 
> Marion was right. Quentin couldn’t just let his life be about Tony Stark.
> 
> **~~~~~**
> 
> The AI file name was ridiculously Stark-esque.
> 
>   
**Espresso Deprived, In Towards Hell.**  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This blew up again. It keeps getting away from me. I really hope I can finish it in four chapters. Enjoy!

It was raining in NYC.

Well, of course it was. There was a storm in Quentin’s head which means there had to be a storm in the sky. He was the lead character in his life. That’s how it works.

Except… it felt like Tony Stark had taken over everything in his life, his thoughts, every action...

Quentin was lounging about in a fast food store, munching on a sad burger. Every pore of his being ached from the absolute rejection from Potts’s office. 

A part of him hoped, prayed that she would confront Stark about it. But he’d seen her face right before the elevators had closed on him. Potts had looked worried and tense. 

It looked like she was worried _for_ Stark.

Quentin figured despite whatever rut the two were stuck in, it didn’t seem to matter because she still clearly had enough feelings to cloud her judgment.

God knows what Potts saw in Stark. Maybe she liked destructive assholes.

In hindsight, Quentin should have waited to release all the files he’d found online. Once the news of the drones hit mainstream media, he could have contacted Potts from obscurity to let her know how to work on damage control.

Quentin would have been safe. He’d still have his job, his social standing, his reputation within the company and outside.

But his fear and anger had disturbed everything. He had lost the defense to his PhD thesis, and his voice in one swoop. Stark had shown him that with a snap of his fingers, he could take everything from Quentin whenever he liked. 

Quentin finished his burger and started on the diluted coke. The fries were soggy. Thunder roared in the grey clouds. A perfect setting of ‘rock bottom’ for our protagonist.

He had turned off his cell to avoid calls and texts from everyone. He figured the news would spread.

_Did you hear? Beck just barged into the CEO’s office and started rambling about Stark..._

Was this worth his job?

Was his job even worth it?

He was always in deference to Stark, they all were. Years of servitude, years of sacrifice, it yielded nothing. Quentin hadn’t even been able to put his name on the product.

He wasn’t like William Ginter Riva. Will had no problems working in anonymity. He liked the job, he didn’t mind not being in the forefront. Will was a follower. 

Not Quentin, though. He was leader.

But he had been following for most of his career. That had been the problem.

That avenue was now lost to him. He needed to figure something out. He needed to find a job in the first place. He had enough money to last him a while. But there was no way he’d be accepted back into the company. Not after the whole show.

****

**~~~~~**

**Dear Mr. Beck,**

**Earlier today, witnesses and CCTV surveillance recorded your unjust behavior in CEO Virginia Potts' office. You were seen to have thrown callous statements about the owner of SI, Tony Stark, aiming to incite inflammatory rhetoric. Stark Industries employs zero-tolerance policy on any instance of discrimination and harassment based on language and action.**

**Following this, you have been let go from Stark Industries. You may not enter any office building connected to SI. Your belongings will be sent to you by the end of the week. Please hand over your deactivated key card to the official who will bring your personal effects.**

**Note that Mr. Stark does not allow for any form of violent sentiments against the company and its employees. You have been added to the ‘Not-To-Be-Employed’ list for all the offices of Stark Industries and its subsidiaries. If you are caught on the premises of any of the company’s utility buildings, you will be escorted out and will be prosecuted for violating these terms.**

**This letter is your one and only notice stating the termination of your employment at SI. **

**Regards,**

**Recruitment Team**

**Stark Industries.**

****

**~~~~~**

Janice, Marion, and Taylor were banging on his door, one rainy afternoon. 

(Yes, it was still raining.)

Quentin ignored the knocks, too engrossed in his TV drama marathon run.

The banging continued after every pause.

“Go away!” Quentin yelled. He was close to finishing his second tub of pecan pie flavor ice-cream. Not to mention, Ross and Emily was getting married and Rachel had just reached the church.

“Quentin, either you let us in or I will!” Janice shouted through the door.

“No!”

“I have a key, dumbass!”

Quentin paused. Right. She and Guterman had helped him move into his current apartment a few years ago and he’d given them an extra key for emergencies.

“I’m opening the door!” She called and he could hear the lock rattle in the door.

Fine. They weren’t getting any ice-cream. Quentin directed his attention on the TV screen where Emily was reciting her vows.

The door swung open and the three marched in. Marion stumbled, wide-eyed at the mess in his house. Taylor groaned at the sight of the empty ice-cream tubs and whiskey bottles.

Janice glared at him.

“We’ve been trying to reach you in over a week!”

“I know,” Quentin grumbled. “And I was avoiding you the whole week.”

“Dude, you look terrible,” Taylor whispered. 

“Yeah, well I just got my career flushed down the toilet. I lost my thesis base, There will be no reputable tech company on the planet who will hire me since I’m on the black-balled list. And I just realized that I never finished ‘Friends’.”

Quentin pointed at the screen. “I bet that Rachel’s gonna make a scene now.”

Taylor stared. “You’ve not seen this episode?”

Janice snatched the tub from Quentin’s hands.

“Listen to me,” She said, her eyes boring into his. “You’re not going to hide here for the rest of your life. When was the last time you had a proper meal?”

Quentin’s head hurt to think. He shrugged and tried to look back at the TV but Janice stood in front of it.

Marion grimaced. “We’re not here to judge you or even ask what exactly went down -”

“My life. That’s what went down.”

“You need to brush your teeth. Just… get up from the couch and go brush your teeth. One step at a time, Quentin,” Marion pleaded. “Please, you need this. You need to -”

“I don’t need to do anything!” He spat. “It’s over, I screwed it up. Potts would never fight Stark, I shouldn’t have taken the files to her. That was a stupid move. I should have gone straight to a press blog or the media. Or just… dumped everything on the net.”

“We can still do that,” Janice muttered. Marion and Taylor looked at her in surprise. Quentin stared.

“Do you know what the PR team said about you?” She asked in a steely voice.

He shook his head, dreading her answer. He didn’t want to know about the horrid stuff they would have undoubtedly filled in the heads of unsuspecting people in the company.

“Just that you resigned following a mental breakdown.”

Quentin barked out a laugh. “A what? Me? If anyone had a mental breakdown, it was Stark!”

Janice sat on the couch beside him, looking resigned. “Say what you want about him. But it isn’t going to help you now. You need to figure out what’s next on the agenda for you.”

“My timetable’s pretty clear, for some strange reason.”

“No it’s not,” Taylor piped up. “You’ve got a teeth-brushing scheduled right now.”

“Quentin?” Marion said, her voice soft. He almost winced at the worry and pain in the open expression of her face. “Can I tell you a story?”

He blinked. “I dunno. Can you?”

“It’s something I learned in school… one of my professors… she used to talk about the meaning of life.”

“Was she your philosophy teacher?”

“No, she was an art teacher. But she knew a lot about a lot, so… her thing about life’s meaning, was the constant search for answers. But she also spoke about asking the right questions. You can only get so far in life working mind-numbing jobs for survival. What really fuels the mind is the understanding that we have limitations and learning to work with them. That means we need to find out what the right question is.”

Marion gestured around the room. “The question you need to ask right now, is what do you need. Do you have food, Quentin?”

“Got a pringles can…”

“It’s empty,” Taylor noted, picking it up and rattling it aimlessly.

“Okay,” Marion sounded energetic now. “Tay and I’ll get some food. You brush your teeth, and Jan can… er…”

Janice looked around the mess in Quentin’s house. She rolled her eyes. “I’ll clear up the table so we can sit there.”

Quentin got up, right as Ross said Rachel’s name instead of Emily. Well, there was another character who had regrets like Quentin did. It was nice to relate.

He brushed his teeth and ate a sandwich. The rains slowed to a drizzle. Janice and Taylor moved around the rooms with a trash bag to dump any open containers. Marion sat at the table with Quentin, looking out the window.

Half of the view outside was obscured by a red brick wall of the nearby apartment complex. Quentin just stared at the clouds crowded in the sky, all heavy and grey.

“I’m sorry about what happened,” Marion mumbled. Quentin held back a retort. He wished she wouldn’t apologize especially when it wasn’t her fault.

“I know about the Drone Tech Division, remember? That’s what you went after, right?”

Quentin didn’t answer, just continued to munch on his smoked barbeque sandwich. Marion looked down at the table.

“You can file for harassment, maybe? That you were treated unjustly and that you were fired for bringing up a valid concern -”

“That’s not how it works, Marion,” Quentin said, still looking at the clouds. It had stopped raining but the dreariness remained.

“That’s not how the world works. People saw me rush into that office without an appointment. They saw me raving about Stark’s plans. I fought the guards who dragged me away. All that creates a narrative against me. What the cameras would have caught was the story of me yelling at the CEO, denouncing the owner of the company. Nobody knows what I was thinking, and nobody would listen to me because I was yelling, and basically looking… unstable.”

Quentin swallowed. “If I try to take them to court, the judge would throw away my report. I lost the chance to do something actually effective with the evidence. If I pursue this, they’ll start digging into my encounters and accounts. They’ll figure out where I got the info about the drones. I can’t risk that.”

Marion gripped the table hard. “That’s not fair! We can get a lawyer -”

“To go up against Stark’s team of attorneys? No one would even attempt that, especially when the evidence is gone, Marion! I’m empty-handed,” Quentin dropped the sandwich and groaned. “I had one attempt and I squandered it! I took only one back-up like an idiot and didn’t put it on a drive, so it was seized when they scrubbed everything from my laptop and work systems. I don’t have anything. It’s all gone.”

He gave a self-deprecating chuckle, “I thought Potts might do something about it because she’s the only one who can. Nobody else can go up against Iron Man. Nobody will go against a superhero billionaire because he has too much money, too much power. The man can fly, Marion. He can shoot lasers from his hands, from the arc reactor, he can throw money at any problem and make it go away… “

He sat back and stared at her. “Stark’s story is the only one that matters. Anyone else? If you don’t have the right things, if you don’t have lasers and superpowers… you’re invisible. Did your art teacher think of that, Marion? Did she think about superheroes going about wreaking havoc and ‘saving the day’? What’s the next question when you’ve been tanked by a hero?”

Marion looked stunned and hurt. Quentin didn’t mean to lash out at her, but he needed her to understand that this wasn’t a small change in choices, this was a major realignment of his entire life.

“The next question,” Marion whispered, voice slightly choked, “would be to search for something you want. What do you want, Quentin?”

He clenched his jaw. “I want Stark to get his comeuppance. I want him to answer to everyone about the drones. He’s the mentally unstable one! I was just trying to bring in the truth!”

Marion didn’t answer for a long moment. “Is there any version of this answer that doesn’t involve him?”

He picked the sandwich back up. “What?”

“Everything you’re thinking about, it’s about Stark. What he’s done, and how he’s getting away from it.”

“That’s what’s happening, Marion!”

“But that’s not helping you right now! What do you want, Quentin? Figure out something for yourself. Forget Stark!”

“I can’t!” Quentin shouted, startling her. “He’s ruined everything! My career, my life! I can never get back into engineering, I’m done! You think anyone’ll hire me now? I’m banned from all SI divisions, which includes all the offices spread around the world! And SI is a beast, they’ll convince other companies, even competitors to turn against me since the official story is that I’m unstable. But the secret story? The one that’s going to be seen as the hidden truth? Everyone will ‘know’ about me being a whistleblower!”

He smacked a hand on the table. “No corporation will even risk hiring someone who’s been flagged as a whistleblower.”

Janice and Taylor approached the table, cautious of his temperament. Quentin screwed his eyes shut.

“Just leave. I can’t talk to you, now. You don’t understand how I feel.”

He heard a soft sigh, the rustling of the trash bag, and the scrap of a chair. He didn’t need to look up to know that Marion was giving him a look of sadness and disappointment.

“There’s more to life than Stark, you know,” she muttered. Quentin heard her footsteps disappear down the hall.

A beat passed as Taylor followed her. Quentin listened to the birds and car horns outside the apartment. Janice was standing right beside him, silent, like she’d planned to stay there the whole day.

“There’s a new hot dog vendor at the cross-roads, two blocks from here,” Janice mumbled. “It smelled pretty good.”

Quentin pressed his nose into his upper arm, hands curling above his head as he lay face down on the table.

“Take a shower. Or a bath. I’ll come back in the evening with some hot dogs. Mustard only, right?”

He didn’t respond. Jan waited for a while before turning on her heel and walking out of the house.

He couldn’t pretend that it didn’t hurt, them walking away from him. 

Quentin didn’t mean to lash out, but Marion had just pushed him with her over-the-top optimism, and her philosophy anecdotes.

He had regrets. If only he’d done things differently…

He sniffled, rubbing his face angrily. What was done, was done. No going back. Quentin laid out the truth for Potts to see and she’d chosen to hide it all and save Stark’s ass. 

Now Quentin could either keep pursuing this or drop it altogether.

He wanted to follow the trail. He wanted to take down the company. He could almost imagine it, so vividly in his head. Top secret files plastered all over the internet, secrets gone viral, media fallout for SI, stocks crashing, share losses -

Stark finally getting his just desserts...

Quentin groaned. No doubt after his initial hacking, the systems would have undergone a revamp to upgrade the firewalls. Stark would have overseen the process himself. There would be no backdoor Quentin can manipulate now. All he would have left is faint loose ends, barely tangible straws that weren’t even worth grasping onto.

Which brings him to the second option; walk away.

Quentin looked out the window again. He imagined Janice running to catch up to Marion and Taylor on the streets. He didn’t know what their plans were. Would they keep working at SI? They had very illustrious goals and bright futures. If they choose to keep their heads down and hold their tongues, they would be successful.

He wouldn’t want them to throw away such a goldmine. It had been his choice, a very reckless one, to go all out with the truth.

He gave up his career for this. Quentin could have been a notable pioneer in the field of holographic technology. He could have written dozens of papers on it. He could have built his fame off of the Stark brand.

He needed to stop thinking of the ‘could-haves’.

If he needed to scrounge up what was left of his dignity, Quentin would need to pick himself up, dust off the debris of his ‘instability’, and walk away.

Marion was right. Quentin couldn’t just let his life be about Tony Stark.

****

**~~~~~**

He made elaborate plans. 

The build-up for his 401K was intact, so that was good news. But Quentin needed a job to keep his apartment. Instead, he chose to sell the apartment and purchase a smaller house on the noisy streets beside Cunningham Park in Queens. The extra money helped keep him afloat till he found a small start-up in need of IT services.

He knew next to nothing about airplane designs, but he had time to flip through the flight manual. Quentin helped keep the systems up to date for APCO Configurations to sketch and build plane blueprints for aircraft drawings. It was pretty amazing to see how an engineer’s hand can design tech through art and then continue the process till the end result sat in front of them, tangible and real.

It was very different from Holo Tech, but just as tight and busy in their small office. Quentin spent most of his hours addressing issues and closing tickets. He was paid by the hour, much less than his dream job, but above minimum wage, so he didn’t complain. The ten-hour job put some strain on his plans to build a new life for himself.

And he had real plans!

Quentin was good with tech and adapting to different programs and systems. He could find a new ideal goal. Holo Tech might not be completely out. He could start a small group to work on a low-cost way to have holograms circulated on far simpler devices, instead of Starkphones.

If he had to work on holograms, he would need to build a whole new method of hologram formulation that had nothing to do with Stark tech.

Quentin worked at APCO during the day. Then, he went home and spent half the night writing up everything he wanted to code into his slow, second-hand system which could explode if he had too many tabs open.

It was slow progress. A few months into the plan, Quentin saved up enough to purchase a better-suited laptop and finally got a jump start to his home project. A couple more months after that, he started to build his own sensors, but using aviation shortcuts he’d learned at his new work to keep the designs different from Stark’s.

Whatever control he’d had (or thought he’d had) over a healthy work-life balance was gone. Quentin was quickly approaching a burned-out mentality in his early thirties.

Life is fun, isn’t it?

Then, Victoria knocked on his door one day.

Nine in the evening, he’d just reached home and collapsed on his lumpy couch when three smart raps on his door made him lurch up.

“Hey,” Victoria said, looking worried, hesitant, and cautious. Quentin stared back. His stomach swooped down at the sight of her. They hadn’t seen each other in nearly five months.

“Hey. What - why are you here?”

She swallowed. “I wanted to see you… I mean, I should have come before, but things got a little…”

“Are you here to apologize?” Quentin interrupted, feeling a prick of annoyance.

“Um… I think that would be callous.”

“Right in one.”

“I got fired.”

Quentin closed his mouth. He gauged her stance, only now noticing her tight shoulders, stony wrinkles, and chapped lips. She looked like she’d aged half a decade in a couple of weeks.

He let her in and made tea instead of his usual coffee.

Victoria curled up on the couch beside him and told him everything that happened after Quentin was let go.

“Damage control was paramount for PR,” she murmured. “People did hear you, Quentin. Not just the ones who sided with Stark and Potts, even the ones who figured out what happened to the Drone Tech Division. Will tried to tell us to stay low, but some of the others on his team tried to get prints of the drone blueprints and AI configuration. That was a violation of their NDAs.”

Quentin winced, empathetic. He knew what that felt like. Breaking the law to do something right, but failing and losing everything.

Victoria grimaced. “Three of Will’s juniors were fired because it was their systems that recorded the attempted copies. SI had all the rights to block the entire thing. Will stuck his neck out for some of the newbies. Some local papers printed the sudden clamping on legislations in the company, but there isn’t any solid material leaked to the public. Not to mention, Drone Tech is officially shut down.”

Quentin did a double-take. “Indefinitely?”

“Hmm?”

“Are they actually stopping the drones - ”

“Oh no. Will thinks that it’s only until the rumors die. I tried to talk to him and some of the other scientists, but HR picked me up for interrogation.”

Victoria blinked fast, eyes growing wet. “I must have raised too many red flags… there was a bunch of us from R&D who got put on probation, and I just received the termination email this morning.”

Quentin set his cup down, turning towards her, stunned. “But… you didn’t even do anything! Tori, you just talked to people -”

“Obviously, I talked to the right people and asked the right questions,” She finished her tea in a large gulp, wincing at the heat. “It happened all within the last few days actually. Before that, all the focus was on your department.”

Quentin groaned. “Oh god! You mean, Janice, Marion, Taylor and everyone? What about Gutes?”

“He’s fine,” Victoria sounded miserable, though. “Janice told him to stay put, while she tried to get to Will. But Will just wanted everyone to wait till the heat’s over. Security started by doing a whole background check on the Drone and Holo Tech employees. Will’s warning was the only reason why most of us even survived the past few months.”

If Quentin had ever been critical of Will’s ‘don’t take too many risks’ attitude, he was tempted to take it all back. But keeping quiet would only let Stark continue his diabolical plan. Someone needed to make noise and raise issues. People needed to make a big deal of it, cause a hassle in the company, make the situation public, make it very visible and hard to ignore.

“I’m sorry, Tori,” Quentin finally said.

She gave him a wry smile. “Who’s apologizing now?”

“Someone has to.”

She slept over at his place, punching the couch to make it more fit for her to rest. Quentin retired to his room and stared into the mirror.

He took in the gauntness of his own face. The bruises underneath his eyes were unmissable, and the pale tone of his skin coupled with his scruffy beard made him look very different to the clearcut version he’d paraded around SI.

He felt as tired as he looked. The tea was a good idea, it settled some of his nerves. But Quentin couldn’t help but think about the drones.

Stark probably only put the division on hold to stave off any impending PR problems. Quentin hadn’t even known he’d been facing any issues. All the news could talk about these days was the engagement of Stark and Potts.

Apparently, the man had actually called up to fifty reporters to the Avengers Compound to publicly propose to Potts.

There was practically nothing about weaponized drones in the papers or online. If there were rumors, they would have been squashed down beneath the bulldozer that was the headlines of the forthcoming wedding of the century.

Stark was getting away with this, Quentin realized. It would take only a few more months until the drones program could come back into effect. And when that happens, Quentin has no doubt that the rest of the current members in that division would be let go, or shifted to other departments.

****

**~~~~~**

Will left SI, soon enough. He was a smart, cautious man. Quentin waited for a week before asking him out for drinks and inviting him to collaborate on Quentin’s small project on his own hologram tech.

Will thought about it and then shrugged. “I’m in.”

It took nearly a year to actually begin the project. Quentin’s start-up was called SEEK Craft. It had about twelve people in total, working out of the two rooms on Utopia Parkway, the only place they could afford to rent out office space at that time of the year. 

Victoria was a huge help regarding system set up. She was no novice when it came to a Research and Development field. Janice and Will verified and improved on Quentin’s coding. Marion and Taylor too joined the team, just weeks before their small company began. Guterman was the last-minute addition, a welcome and joyous one.

They had a few new faces. There was a Gloria Rodrigo who used to work with Quentin at APCO. She was excellent at designs, whether it came to aircraft interiors, wiring channels, building plans, and small electronic devices.

Dana Bamonte was an older gentleman who joined first as someone who just liked talking to Quentin about the atrocities of Howard Stark. They shared angry sentiments about the billionaire line and later figured out that Dana was pretty good at team management. Quentin hired him as personnel to look out for any group or individual requirement, communication any IT requirements, or HR issues within their team of a dozen people.

Perhaps the last three were the most interesting part of the group.

Tess Chopin from Quentin’s old team, and her cousins, Frank and Vivien, were what made SEEK Craft different from Stark Industries’ Holo Tech.

Frank and Vivien were only 25, but their proposal of inducting Deep Fake technology in their holographic systems was something Quentin hadn’t considered before. He needed to brush up on the new linguistics of emerging possibilities of technology. 

Human image synthesis. He had no clue what that actually meant, but he was learning. If there was one thing Quentin knew for sure, it was that hanging out with people from different fields only gave way to out-of-the-box thinking. 

It was an amazing process. Frank had managed to write a rudimentary user interface code, nothing up to JARVIS or even FRIDAY’s standards, but something that worked well enough on their meager systems. Vivien used the UI to set hundreds of human faces on photographs as a foundation to work on. She then used facial recognition to track applied markers to change specific features of a person’s face, turn it into something completely different.

Quentin stared as the siblings worked. 

Tess folded her arms, looking proud of her cousins. “Heard of mocap?”

“Motion Capture? Yeah, they use that for CGI, right?” Quentin asked, not taking his eyes off the screen where he watched Frank use Quentin’s face to replace some of his features and present a completely different person.

“Basically, mocap markers are used to track specific parts of an actor’s body, be it their faces or limbs. What Frank’s put in the base code, tracks a person’s eyebrows alignment, the corners of their lips, and…”

“And the corner of their eyes,” Frank responded. “Human faces are incredibly complex. We have layers of skin and muscle and every little movement shows a change in appearance and emotion. When you smile, you don’t just use your mouth, you use your eyes, you use the sides of your faces, your nose might turn up, your chin will be different… a hundred things are going on every time you move one part.”

He pointed at Quentin’s horribly disfigured face. “This looks terrible, doesn’t it?”

“Thanks,” Quentin sighed as Vivien and Tess laughed.

“That’s because I’m only tracking three areas. If Vivi and I add any more to the code, the computer’s fan will pretty much die.”

Quentin clenched his jaw for a moment before clapping Frank on the back. “Tori and I are working on that. If we need to finish the coding for your deep fakes, the sensors, and image rendering, we’ll need more resources than this.”

Tess asked, “How’s the funding going?”

“I’m still on loan. Will has enough to last us a couple more months without strain,” Quentin stood up and looked around their small floor. “Dana and I are in talks with a small investor. If that goes through, we can afford better systems. Are you still using the pirated versions of CC?”

Vivien looked dejected. “Yeah. They’re working well enough.”

“As long as we don’t shoot off an error report,” Frank muttered. “We should be fine.”

Tess shrugged. “We’re working with what we got. It’s going well for now.”

Quentin understood that feeling. He’d quit APCO as soon as he could make this new project of his, a reality. It wasn’t smooth, but it wasn’t as bad as he had feared. Things were going well enough. Their team was small but efficient. Their resources were sketchy but steady.

That night, the team were digging into their takeout boxes, ready to pull an all-nighter. Quentin stood up, holding his Pad Thai, trying to portray a confident demeanor.

“Speech from His Majesty, Beckingham!” Gutes cried, raising his box of chop suey.

Everyone looked up and waited. Quentin felt his neck grow warm, but pushed ahead anyway.

“Things are going to be tough,” He began with no preamble. “We’re starting something that’s been done before. There are multi-million dollar versions of hologram tech on the market. It’s an idea that’s been alive since the 20th century. There are rudimentary versions of holograms in many places.”

Taylor wrinkled his nose. “Worst pep talk ever.”

Quentin tilted his head. “It’s the truth. But what we’re heading towards, our goals, they’re different. We’re aiming to produce cost-effective, locally available holo tech. Holographic interface is the future. It’s not supposed to be an opera play that’s accessible only to the elite, or a private beach that’s affordable only to the rich. The future is supposed to be open to all of us.”

He waved his hand around their small room on the second floor of a noisy utility building on a busy block, right beside a medium-sized intersection.

“Yeah, it’s not a state of the art environment. We’re not backed by unlimited resources. We need to use what we have,” He gestured towards Tess as he said, “We have to work with what we got.”

“And it’s not ideal. We’re going to have tiresome days and sleepless nights. We’re going to worry about the money and the systems. But we’re doing this for everyone. The world has a right to use this tech that’s actually been available for years, probably even decades. We say the future is now, but it isn’t ‘now’ for so many of us. We’re being held back from it. That’s not fair. Nobody has a copyright to the progress. We… that’s our question, isn’t it?”

He looked over at Marion who sat up. “That’s what we’re searching for. We don’t live in a vacuum, we live with each other. We have to work with each other and help the world, that’s how we really progress. Our question is ‘what are the problems?’ The next question is ‘how do we fix these problems?’ We’re always searching for the next step, whether it’s figuring out an answer, or just clarifying the question.”

Marion grinned at him. Quentin continued, feeling more upbeat. “SEEK Craft is not an answer to our questions. We’re just here to show people how to ask better questions. That’s the next step to an answer that should help us all, not just some of us.”

Gutes chuckled. “To asking better questions.”

Everyone raised their takeout boxes. “To asking better questions!”

After dinner, Dana went ahead to fix a pot of coffee for the team. They settled down to continue working on the coding. Quentin had just perched himself beside the window and opened his prompt when Marion approached.

“Hi,” she said, sitting beside him.

“Hi. What’s on your agenda for now?”

“I’m helping Frank with refining his base code. If we can fit in more lines, Vivien can do a better work of tracking faces.”

“Without the system upgrade?” He asked in surprise.

“That’s what we’re hoping,” she picked at a loose thread of her denim pants. “I wanted to ask, though… is that why you named the start-up SEEK?”

“SEEK Craft,” Quentin mumbled. “It’s not short for anything. We’re all searching for answers. You made a good point that day. We need to search for the questions first. It’s a skill to search and find the right kind of questions.”

Marion smiled. Her eyes shone from the glare of the headlights from the cars on the roads outside. Quentin liked it when she looked up to him. It made him feel noticed, visible. It made him feel like he was doing the right thing, that he was getting people’s attention.

That he hadn’t failed in getting people to notice him.

“You remember a couple of years ago… when we met at the bar after phase one was done?” She whispered.

Quentin thought back. “Sam’s Pub? That was a while back, Marion.”

“Oh wow, time just flies…” she shook her head. “That night you spoke about working on phase one and how the most difficult part was over. I was just thinking. This new project of ours? We’re gonna run into a lot of roadblocks on the way.”

Quentin hummed. “Yeah, it’s definitely not smooth sailing, but expectation wise -”

“But do you remember what I said?” Marion interrupted, sitting up and watching him keenly.

He frowned, trying to recall Marion’s words from that night. He couldn’t remember the exact phrasing, but she’d said something that had made him happy enough to float.

“You said that I was the best team leader ever.”

“Quentin.”

“And that nobody else could compare.”

“Beck!”

He laughed. “I remember, Marion. You said that you learned a lot from working in a team.”

She nodded. “Yeah. I learned a lot from you and the team. The main thing I understood was that no matter what project it was, I knew that the team was the best thing I could be in. You are a great TL, Quentin, but what always stands out is that whether we’re in a swanky office at SI, or a rented room near the suburbs, this team is what’s important. We’re not units of manpower, we’re people working our asses off for a valid cause.

“I walked away from SI because I wanted to do better. I was scared of doing that until you called and told me about your plan. It just made sense to me and…”

Marion looked out the window at the street where the intersection was jam-packed by multiple vehicles. “We’re working to convert a luxury, out-of-reach item into a readily accessible piece of tech. We’re going to give this to the regular person jaywalking across that road, and the family sitting in that car, blaring the horn at the red light. We’re opening a new branch of the future for people, not judging whether they deserve to get it, but just knowing that it’s not our place to judge them.”

She smiled at him, slightly sad. “It’s not perfect. Our reasoning, our questions, and answers, they can’t be perfect, but that’s why we need more chances. That’s how we really figure out how to make our questions better and our answers more productive.”

Quentin stared at her. “You know that I learn more from you and then you learn from me?”

She grinned. “Cool. When you retire, I’ll take over the team.”

“I’m not even middle aged, Marion.”

“Pretty sure I can see some grey hairs in your beard.”

“Smart ass.”

They had their ups and downs. Quentin and Dana were successful in finding a new investor to fund them, but they had to work on less reliable programs to keep moving forward. The team received positive feedback for some of their first products, but they remained a small-time group for the next two years.

Quentin didn’t want to be too optimistic about their situation, but he had a feeling that years from now, he would look back on the moment he was fired from SI and would think that it was one of the best times of his life.

Their team of twelve evolved to seventeen and then twenty-three. Their revenue wasn’t too bad. Work hours were still not ideal, but the fact that he was doing something he loved, something he excelled it, made the hardships more bearable.

He could do this. He was doing this.

Summer of 2018 was when everything came crashing down on Quentin’s head.

It wasn’t just his life that was wrecked.

It began in the late morning, just another day. Quentin, Will, and Gloria had stepped out to do a coffee run. He needed to get out of the office for a breather.

They were in the cafe when their cells began to go off. Everyone in the store seemed to stop and look towards their phones. Quentin remembered the day when he was in Massachusetts, and there was an alien invasion in New York.

Gloria quickly checked her feed and gasped. Will looked over her shoulder, balancing a tray of six coffee cups.

“No,” she whispered, horrified. “Not again.”

Quentin peered and spotted an image on the screen of her phone. It was that of a massive metal ring-shaped… UFO.

People began to shout and leave the cafe. Quentin swallowed, feeling cold sweat break out all over his skin.

“Where is that?” He asked, hands shaking.

Gloria scrolled down, frantically. “The Village, Manhattan. Damn it, Iron Man’s there!”

“Is it bad?” Will asked, looking out the store, trying to spot if people were running, if aliens were attacking them.

“No… people tweeted that it was just two aliens fighting Iron Man and Spider-Man.”

“Near the Village, right?” Will confirmed, visibly panicking. “We’ll be safer here.”

Quentin didn’t want to dash his hopes, but if aliens were attacking, was anywhere really safe? The Avengers had disbanded, SHIELD was still picking up, Iron Man was just one person, Spider-Man was a fast-talking, scrappy little hero. The police and army were laughable options to fight against beings from another world.

“I have to go,” Gloria said hurriedly pocketing her phone. “My mom lives in Brooklyn. That’s too close.”

Quentin and Will made their way back to the office. Nobody was working. The room was quiet and tense. About ten people were sitting on their rickety swivel chairs, eyes glued to a screen on the table.

Will offered cold coffee to everyone but Quentin stared at the news, a bitter taste filling his mouth.

**Iron Man Missing.**

As much as Quentin hated to admit it, Stark was probably their best chance against an invasion. But if he was no longer on the planet, what’s the use?

Tess’s voice came out, slightly hitched. “There were people using magic. Some golden glowy circles… They were fighting the aliens and made one of them disappear. The second one took another magician and Spider-Man -”

“Beamed them up, like in Star Trek,” Taylor said, voice tight even as he tried to joke. Marion clasped his hand and Quentin winced at the frightened look on her face.

“And Stark flew after them. The ship disappeared,” Tess sighed. 

Will sat beside Vivien and Frank. “Guys, go on home. It’s not gonna help anyone - ”

“I don’t want to be alone,” Victoria mentioned, shoulders hunched. Quentin went to stand by her and drew her in for a one-armed hug.

“If you want to go home, you can. The others can stay here. We don’t have to work, just…”

He shrugged. Janice nodded and the rest looked relieved.

Some of them left. Quentin stayed behind with Victoria, Vivien, Frank, and Will. The five of them bought food from Subway nearby and ate lunch, trying to cheer themselves up with comedy sketches online.

A few hours later, the screaming began.

Quentin rushed in from the closet, to see Victoria and Will back away from one of the tables, looks of terror etched on their faces. Vivien was standing in the center, apparently gone into shock as she mutely gaped at the floor. 

“What…” he whispered. “What happened? Vivien, are you hurt?”

Victoria had a hand over her mouth. Will seemed equally speechless.

“Frank,” Vivien whispered. She kneeled down and touched the floor where there was a soft layer of brownish ash. Quentin couldn’t understand it.

“He just… he just…” Vivien couldn’t say anything else, eyes bulging out, tendons around her throat straining like she was still shouting.

Quentin could hear people yelling and shrieking from outside. Cars blared their horns and a loud crash echoed from the road. Quentin ran towards the windows and looked down to find a brush of ash floating in the air, everywhere. People were running, some had collapsed. Cars had crashed into each other and in the distance, people were turning into dust.

What?

He stuck half his body out the window to grasp what he’d just witnessed. It was real. Two of the pedestrians on the pavement had just turned to ash.

Ash like that on the floor of their office.

Quentin’s phone began to ring. He couldn’t move to pick it up.

He had to be dreaming. Disappearing into dust wasn’t something people did on a whim. This wasn’t real. Quentin went about his next movements in a delirious haze.

Marion had called him, blubbering through tears. Victoria was talking to him, but her words didn’t seem to reach his ears. Will was trying to comfort Vivien who was crying now.

The people in the streets were in shock, some sitting on the roads, arms and faces covered in ash. Quentin ran through the dead-locked streets till he reached Marion and Taylor’s apartment.

An odd ringing was reverberating through his head. White noise filled his ears. Quentin burst through the door, stumbling into the small apartment hall. He spotted Marion sitting on the carpet. There was ash on her lap and hands, tears on her face, anguish in every atom of her being.

“He’s gone!” Marion wailed when she saw Quentin staring at her, frozen. “He just turned to dust! And I… I did nothing!”

Quentin couldn’t swallow down the lump in his throat. There was something falling through him, falling away. Something he’d never get back.

The feeling of safety. It was gone.

Marion dissolved into fresh sobs and Quentin kneeled by her, bringing her into a tight hug. She held on, hiccuping into his shirt.

****

**~~~~~**

It took weeks for a functioning emergency service to run and help the leftovers. Electricity, water, and food had failed several times until government-funded and volunteers picked themselves up and tried to do something about the mess.

Billions of people had turned to dust. The Snap, they called it. Quentin wasn’t sure where he heard the term from, but soon, that’s what everyone began calling it. The Snap wiped out half the population of Earth. In the immediate aftermath, falling airplanes, colliding trains, understaffed hospitals, sudden pile-ups on busy roads took out millions of others, leaving behind a grieving section of the world, unaware and completely vulnerable.

It was unfathomable. The same thing had happened to thousands of planets across the universe.

Quentin’s team of 23 was reduced to nine - Quentin, Marion, Victoria, Will, Janice, Guterman, Vivien, Tess, and Dana. SEEK Craft had to shut down. Who needed holograms when everyone was running after food, water, shelter, and meds?

Quentin sold as many assets as he could to hoard some money for the team. They stayed at Will’s place, since it was the largest space to accommodate them. 

The roads were deserted, curfew was eight in the evening. The police departments ran strict regulations and nobody dared to cross them. Crime rates rose, depression settled in, the stock market crashed, currency values depleted, countries staked each other out again, funding fell across the board.

Hunger was commonplace. The universe had turned into a shadow of itself, unrecognizable. People went to sleep hungry, exhausted, and furious most of the time. 

The sky had gone completely cloudy, covering up nearly all the stars. The oceans gave a terrible odor, everything smelled of dust and dirt. Over the next few seasons, climate shifted across the hemispheres, retaining extreme effects.

Quentin remembered staring up at the dull skies one night. He tried to imagine a whole universe out there, suffering just like them.

Some days, he would hear news about Stark.

The man had returned from wherever he’d gone to before the Snap. Quentin and most of the world had been emboldened when they heard that. Everyone hoped and prayed Stark would save them, would fix this, would bring everyone back.

Stark went ahead and hung up the suit.

Fine. That was absolutely fine. They didn’t need him.

Stark went on to get married to Potts. They had a kid. They lived in a secluded place, away from the city.

Quentin would lie in bed some nights, fighting hunger pangs and trying to come up with an explanation of how fate could let Iron Man escape with barely any consequences, _every damn time._

He was one of the lucky ones. Lucky as in, the aftershock hadn’t affected him. Quentin was healthy enough to go outside and help people. He volunteered in hastily set up soup kitchens, he joined a home-guard association to help keep some neighborhoods relatively safe at night.

It was bad outside. Quentin had spent days deciding on buying a gun. Just one to keep himself safe. Plus the people he was living with. They were in a better locality, but one could never tell.

A couple of years passed before a semblance of balance settled. Food distribution efforts doubled. The water was cleaner. Inflation rates fell slowly. 

The curfew was lifted after the second anniversary of the Snap.

People still retained a sour quality in their attitudes. There wasn’t a soul who hadn’t been touched by the Snap.

“Quentin,” Victoria called. He looked up from cleaning the dishes.

Victoria had volunteered in the Soup Kitchen as well. Quentin was usually upfront, serving people and trying to cheer them up. He had a way to get people to chat, and at least pretend to believe that things would get better. But that day, he wasn’t up to the task, and had retired to the kitchen to clean up.

“Yeah?”

“Got some stew. You skipped lunch again.”

She placed a small bowl down on a desk in the corner. Quentin set down a dish and the hose and took off the gloves. His stomach rumbled and he gave her a reluctant smile.

“Thanks, Tori. You had some?”

“Yeah, just finished the last can of tomato soup,” she said, sitting beside him.

Quentin dug into the stew. It was good. The onion and beans were cooked well and the flavor tickled his tongue as the stew warmed his insides. He began to inhale it.

“This isn’t canned…?” He asked. It felt like he was eating home-cooked food after a very long time.

Victoria gave him a tight-lipped look. “It’s from a new batch of cans from the latest funder. SI’s going all out.”

Quentin froze. “What?”

“Stark’s back in public. Well, not totally back,” she waved a hand. “But the relief funds from his charities just gave us a few million dollars to pick up better food. They’re expanding to build shelters outside boroughs, all over the country.”

Quentin wanted to push the stew away. He didn’t want any of Stark’s charity. But his body ached at the thought of rejecting food, let alone food as good as this.

“Just finish it,” Victoria sighed, sensing his internal dilemma. “You can be mad at him _and_ take his charity. We need it.”

He swore under his breath. “We wouldn’t need his charity if he’d just fixed the issue, before everyone got dusted.”

“Yeah, well. There’s only so much a single person can do.”

Quentin snorted. “Who’s fault is it that the Avengers split up? If they’d worked their issues out like adults, we’d never be facing this!”

Victoria blinked. “Maybe that’s why he was building those drones. He lost his team, so he was trying to make a back-up to replace them.”

“Tech can’t replace people,” Quentin said, resolute. “And can we never talk about those stupid drones? He didn’t even use them in the end.”

“He closed the division -”

“Why are you siding with Stark?” Quentin demanded, letting his spoon fall into the half-empty stew bowl with a sharp clang.

Victoria pressed her fingers against her temples. “I just heard his speech last week. The one for the anniversary. He wasn’t looking so good.”

“I don’t care -”

“He reminded me of you.”

Quentin stared. She glared back, equally irritated. 

“I’ve never been so insulted in my life,” he grumbled.

“Not in looks, good god! It’s the way he was holding himself,” she muttered. “That defeated look. He was trying to do something. He’s helping us. I don’t care if he’s filth, I’m taking everything he’s giving because we don’t have the luxury of choices. I’m just saying, he isn’t like he was before.”

“Everyone’s changed,” Quentin answered, finishing his stew. “We’re never going back, Tori.”

“I know. It’s just… it’s something Will told me the other day.”

She leaned on the table, dropping her head into her arms. Quentin swallowed the last of the stew. 

“Will was wondering why Stark would hold the press conference when it was Potts who was managing most of the company stuff. Then we realized that he was wearing his glasses.”

Quentin exhaled. “So? He always wears them.”

Victoria looked up. “The shades he wears to summon his new suit, or control the facility. He’s updated his AI and can talk to her through the glasses. He can basically control everything just from the shades.”

He knew this. Stark had once hijacked control of the Holo Tech, during the MIT presentation, using just his shades. It wasn’t just a remote control, it was total server management.

“Why are you telling me this?” He asked slowly.

Victoria squinted towards the door, checking if anyone might be eavesdropping on them. Then she leaned towards him and whispered, “Will said that the drones are now operational.”

Quentin clenched his fists and relaxed them slowly. “You said he shut the division down.”

“To our knowledge, he had. Will told me that Stark had moved all the drones and controls to a separate warehouse. But this was before Will resigned. One of the guards at the warehouse accidentally sent Will an alert that the drones were accessed a few months ago. He didn’t think much of it and forgot, but now that Stark’s out in public, glasses at his command -”

“He’s activated the drones,” Quentin realized. “Are they still in the warehouse?”

“No, they’ve been moved. Will thinks he can find out where Stark’s hiding them, but I thought… you should know.”

Victoria swallowed like she was worried about his reaction. Quentin had always been a little too distracted by the weaponized drones, the way how any normal person would be.

“How many drones are there?”

“Will said they worked on nearly four hundred units. But not all of them were up to the task.”

The number was staggering. Quentin leaned back, dizzy from the implications. 

Victoria watched him carefully. He looked back at her, wishing things were easy. “Did you tell anyone else?”

“No. What’re you thinking?”

Good question. Should Quentin open this can of worms again? If the drones are active, Stark has a proper offense system to safeguard himself. There would be no way Quentin can break into any holding to access info on them.

But this wasn’t public. Stark had a secret drone system that had the capability to wipe out a good chunk of the population. People needed to know.

An idea struck him.

“When we were working on the holo tech,” Quentin said, sitting up. “We built enough sensors to fill up Stark Tower. Each sensor was the size of a button, by the way.”

“Millions, I guess,” Victoria hummed.

“Yeah. The thing is, not all of them passed the quality test. We had to chuck many away and rebuild better versions. But the ones that were thrown away, weren’t destroyed. We were going green, remember? There was a process to discard any failed tech to reduce the carbon footprint.”

Quentin’s eyes lit up. “The sensors were stored in a building near the East Coast. Fenwick Island, I think! If there are drones that have been discarded too-”

“They would be in the warehouse right now,” Victoria said in wonder. “Then if we… If we can get some of them, we can tell everyone!”

“We’ll have proof, finally!”

It was a risky plan. Stark and Potts would be announcing an increase in their funding percentage for a select few charities abroad. It was the only time Quentin figured that the power couple would be supremely busy with other tasks. 

Unbeknownst to Victoria and Will, Quentin kept his gun on him. Just to be on the safe side.

He, Victoria, and Will drove to Delaware on a dusty Saturday. Since Will was the only one out of the three of them to not have been fired by SI, he was actually allowed on the premises of the warehouse.

Their small road trip was a breath of fresh air. Not literal fresh air. The dust of the Snapped never truly settled.

Fenwick Island was not a fortress that Quentin had been privately dreading. It was a small piece of land surrounding by a moat. The bridge was open for them to cross.

The next part of the plan actually utilized their holo tech. Quentin had placed his versions of the sensors on soft grey t-shirts and pants that he and Victoria wore in the back seat. On activating their rudimentary motion capture suits, the sensors projected light in all directions, displaying a very realistic, 3D image of an empty seat.

Will drove them right up to the gate. Quentin and Victoria hid behind the projection, taking care to not move and upset the pixels floating in the air.

There was only one guard in the security box. He walked up to Will as the car slowed to a stop.

“Sir, this is private property. We take no regular appointments,” the guard indicated brusquely.

“I figured that, yes,” Will said, holding up his phone to show the guard the email he’d received from SI. “This says that one of my assets in the storage lockers was being moved?”

The guard checked the email. “Sir, I suppose you would know more about that than me.”

“That’s true. But I don’t work for SI anymore. This locker must have some of my notes that actually don’t belong to the company.”

The guard looked unsure. “I don’t think there are any books or notes here, sir. It’s a warehouse for hardware that’s supposed to be destroyed once the storage period is over.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. If some of my notes were accidentally packed in one of the boxes, they would be destroyed.” Will gave a worried look.

Quentin thought Will was pretty good at selling the sweaty, poor genius look.

The guard sighed. “What division did you work for, sir?”

“R&D. I was a scientist at SI for fifteen years. I had my notes all over the place!”

It took a full minute for the guard to relent. “Okay, sir. If you can find the right storage locker quickly, you can take your notes.”

“Thank you!”

The gates opened and Will drove in. Quentin felt Victoria take his hand, eagerly squeezing it.

Will took a turn to park the car just out of the guard’s sight. Shielded behind a clump of tall bushes, Quentin and Victoria stepped out. They quickly stood to the side as Will got out to follow the guard into the seemingly abandoned facility. The invisible pair stepped after the two men, silent and ghost-like.

The projection was still working. Victoria held the camera that absorbed the details of the empty corridors in front of them. Quentin and her mocap outfits reflected the same empty space to make it look like they just weren’t there.

The top corners of every hallway had old CCTVs. Quentin walked stiffly, staying as quiet as possible.

They made it all the way to Locker 172C3.

“Are you sure it’s this one?” The guard asked, looking doubtful. “These were left here just a month ago.”

“One month?” Will asked, confused. “Could it have been shuffled from another locker?” 

“Could be,” the guard shrugged. “Let’s see.”

He unlocked the shutter and opened it. Quentin’s jaw dropped.

The room was filled with nearly fifty drones, deactivated, left for dead. The white paint was peeling off, showcasing awful scratches on the bodies of most of them. They were piled up in mounds, with no care for the multi-million dollar devices. Quentin could even see a small taser gun poking out of one of the drones.

The guard gave a low whistle. “Yikes. And they say Skynet’ll never happen.”

Will stammered. “There’s… that box over there… in the corner, it could have some of my books?”

A carton box lay near the far end, groaning under the weight of at least ten drones. The guard helped clear the carton. Victoria urgently tapped on Quentin’s arm and he ducked to the side, grabbing one of the surprising light drones.

Will didn’t make any move to indicate that Quentin fell out of the projection. Cool.

In the end, they left the warehouse with three books, two partially destroyed USB drives, and one drone.

****

**~~~~~**

They hid away in their old office, working on the information they'd gotten from the warehouse.

Victoria dismantled the already deactivated tracker embedded in the drone. Will was flipping through the notes made in the books and Quentin was examining the flickering information on the absolved thumb drives Will had flicked without the guard knowing.

The first drive had blueprints designed by Stark himself. It reminded Quentin of the sketches of aircraft models he’d seen during his time at APCO. Stark’s drawings had the precise touch of an engineer’s hand, refined a hundred times. Quentin could isolate the parts Stark had despised and worked to make them better.

Quentin was back in his element. He was working on Stark tech again. The hollowness in his chest was temporarily sated.

The second drive contained only one file titled **“Espresso Deprived, In Towards Hell”**.

“Look at this,” Quentin breathed after he’d opened the strangely named document. It was twenty pages containing the framework of a new AI Stark had designed for the drone system.

Quentin was right. Stark did write a completely different AI for the drones.

Victoria stared at the screen. “He wrote a whole new code just for the drones?”

Will put on his reading glasses. “This is amazing! Look at the adaptable software expectations. Stark can just give a command, and the drones would theorize, strategize, and execute the command based on the situation.”

“Why would he leave this drive lying in a storage locker?” Victoria asked, incredulous.

Quentin frowned, checking the lines of code. “He had meant to destroy it. Then this code isn’t the final version, he hardly ever kept discarded information.”

“Assuming that Stark has written the final code, created the AI, and integrated it with the drones,” Will asked slowly, “Where would he keep them? There were sixty-seven pieces in the locker. He must have created at least five hundred of them.”

Victoria nodded. “Yeah, but if we plan this right, we can expose his drone system with this one unit.”

Quentin looked at the piece she had on the table. The drone was very obviously not Stark quality. He could deny having created it. And people would believe him.

“Tori,” he said slowly, “This drone looks like it’s seen better days. The real proof we have is that the books have Stark’s handwriting in them and the drives have his style of coding. All the evidence we have here can be easily wiped away, and made to disappear.”

She raised her eyebrows. “We leak this info online.”

“Stark’s friends with NEXUS. He’s keeping the drones secret, which means he’ll have his AI tracking target words on the net. If we are releasing the info, it needs to go absolutely viral so that everyone can see it before he takes it down.”

Will shared a surprised look with Victoria before asking, “So you don’t want to leak this?”

Quentin pressed his lips together, staring at the drone again. “I want to do it properly this time. I messed it up before, and a lot of you also suffered for it. That’s not going to happen again. We have one drone, we know where the other deactivated ones are. Stark’s hidden the approved ones somewhere on the planet. We need to be smart about this.”

He stood up, walking towards the drone and picking up the broken tracker. “We use his tech against him. We come up with a full-proof plan and go into this carefully. We know how Stark tech works, we know how _Stark_ works. This is doable.”

Victoria folded her arms. “You want to take down Tony Stark for good.”

Quentin grinned. “We are going to take him down for good. I’m looking at two incredibly smart people who figured out that Stark’s activated his drone system, just by looking at his stupid sunglasses.”

Will was hesitant, “Quentin, are you sure about this? Stark is actually… I mean, he’s helping with the funds and the food.”

“We’re bringing his reputation down, Riva,” Quentin pointed out, “Short of literally killing him, no one can actually stop Tony Stark. But people need to know what he’s doing behind all our backs. All we’re doing is exposing him to the world. He gave up on us and hid away for two years, he can’t expect to come out with a hoard of cash and just… assume we’ll sweep everything under the rug.”

The AI file name was ridiculously Stark-esque.

**Espresso Deprived, In Towards Hell.**

Victoria plucked the thumb drive from its socket. “We’re essentially going up against the man whose worst nightmare is lack of coffee. The three of us aren’t going to cut it, Quentin.”

Quentin smirked. “True. But we have something Stark doesn’t. We have a team built on loyalty. And I’ll bet you that every single one of them will pay everything they’ve got to see Stark fall.”


	4. Kingdom of Welcome Addiction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marion had been right. Quentin couldn’t just let his life be about Tony Stark.
> 
> But that’s what happened. He worked for years with one goal in mind - Take down Stark.
> 
> Except…
> 
> It was too late.
> 
> Because Stark just sacrificed himself to save the goddamn universe.
> 
> What was Quentin left with now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic length has changed because I'm not sure if the limit would be 5 or 6 or even more. Let's see where it goes.  
This chapter took me three weeks to write and is 17k words long. This is what happens when I can't find the off button to my brain.  
TW: Description of a fight, some violence near the end.
> 
> Megamind reference in this one :)  
Ooh, you should check out the IAMX album 'Kingdom of Welcome Addiction'! I could relate the songs to Quentin, Tony, and Peter.
> 
> EDIT: Made some minor changes, fixed errors.

Victoria was even more excited about this than Quentin.

She gathered a few of her friends and gave them a run-down of how their rudimentary plans to ‘defeat’ Stark came to play. Quentin found Vivien and Dana quite interested in the project. Will was hesitant about going up against a tech giant, but he never refused any of Quentin’s offers.

Their small team from SEEK Craft joined in within a week. A few more were inducted by the end of the month.

Only Marion was yet to decide.

“I don’t like this,” she said, hands cupped around a mug of hot cocoa. They sat in a rundown cafe taking up a back booth. The ambiance was subdued and everyone kept to themselves. 

Quentin held back a retort and tried to calm himself. It would be beneficial for him to have her on his team. He’d never force her to join, but clearly, he needed to convince her soon.

“It’s okay to be wary. SI is no joke, whether it’s Stark heading it or Potts. That’s why we’re going to approach this in the most careful way -”

“Quentin,” she interrupted. “This is… it’s too risky! We stand to lose so much, d’you understand?”

“I know what the risks are. I probably know them better than you.”

Marion nodded. “That’s true. You’ll know that better than me. But… just try to explain this to me, why are you so obsessed with him?”

Quentin gaped. “What? Marion, I’m not -”

She shot him a look and he stopped to take a breath.

“I am not _obsessed_ with him. You saying that actually hurts me.”

She groaned. “I don’t want to have to do anything regarding Stark! And it’s obvious that you can’t let him go! I thought you were doing great with SEEK Craft, with the rehabilitation efforts -”

“I wouldn’t be in those spots if it hadn’t been for him,” Quentin almost snapped. “You know what kind of a person he is. You know what was in the storage facility. You heard Will, there’s an active drone fleet system hidden somewhere, completely under Stark’s control. One person should not have that much power. Especially the person who failed to use his power to actually save the planet when the time came.”

Marion sat back with a huff. The dark circles under her eyes seemed to sag even more with her quick inhale. “I think the fate of the planet shouldn’t rest on one person’s shoulders.”

“I swear, sometimes it’s like you’re on his side.”

“I’m saying… you’re right about the drones. One guy shouldn’t be operating them all. Something like that shouldn’t even be under one government’s rule. It’s too much power, too much potential for corruption. But, you going after Stark is too dangerous. What d’you think he’d do to you when he figures us out?”

Quentin narrowed his eyes. “He’s not going to figure it out.”

“He’s one of the smartest people -”

“We’re going to work as a team on this,” Quentin pointed out. “That’s what he doesn’t have. Even after the Snap, Stark hasn’t reconciled with the other Avengers. That just goes to show how arrogant he is. A world stopping event wasn’t enough for the man to swallow his pride.”

Marion massaged the sides of her temples. “You spend so much time and energy hating him. It’s like you turn into somebody else when you do this. Quentin, there are other ways to take down multi-billion dollar corporations. This… it’s too personal for you.”

“Well then. That’s the only way things can get done, right?” He asked, scathingly. “It has to be personal, otherwise no one would care.”

Marion looked up at him, tired. “Is this what you really want to do? You told me yourself, you want to be more than what Stark left you as. If you keep going back -”

“He’s not some ex of mine that I’m struggling to get over, Marion!” He scowled. “He’s someone with actual terrifying qualities, real-life villainous ambitions. If something isn’t in his control, it automatically becomes a source of contention. That’s not healthy thinking. He used to be known as the Merchant of Death, he was paid millions by the hour for thinking up ways to kill people in the most horrific style possible! Just because he’s scrapped that part of his life doesn’t mean he’s settled in a completely different way of life. His weapons are still here. He’s made a whole system, ready to attack anything that defies him!”

Quentin grimaced at his outburst but continued. “He’s a super-villain, straight out of the pages of a comic book. What’s worse is that people depend on him. We depend on him to survive. That’s not right. I’m not going to wait and watch while he wreaks havoc on the rest of us. You can join us and help out. Or you can stay away. You can’t tell anybody about this, though.” 

Marion pressed her lips together, her forehead wrinkled in a frown. She glared at him long enough for him to finish his drink.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Marion finally whispered. “But I’m not going to be a part of this. SI is helping people right now. I don’t want to do anything to upset that.”

Quentin didn’t want to pretend that it wasn’t a blow. Marion wasn’t as complacent as Will, but there was a lack of fight in her which was the only quality that Quentin didn’t admire. He knew she wanted things to change. He also knew she didn’t approve of the devious way he planned to make that change.

And so, they parted ways.

****

**~~~~~**

Out of the many things Quentin was very talented at, it was devising an elaborate scheme.

He compartmentalized the situation in his head and laid out plans for the team. Vivien and Tess worked on the lone drone sample they’d stolen from the warehouse facility on Fenwick Island. 

Janice and Gutes tracked Stark’s movements, trying to draw up a significantly detailed schedule of his agenda.

Will helped some of the newbies to learn to read Stark’s coding style, to get a better view of his outdated AI set up for the drones. Quentin hoped that they would be able to understand and actually track the new AI system made and approved by Stark.

Quentin and Victoria looked up on shift changes for the guards at the warehouse facility. It would be ideal to gain a few more drone units to work on.

That was their first step towards **Operation: Stark’s Ruination**. Will, Tess, and Janice planned to disguise themselves as workers from Damage Control. If they could drive a truck into the warehouse and load up all the drones under the guise of conducting the routine disposal… well, they might just get away scot-free.

Quentin was helping Desiree and Cole, the recruits, plant sensors over an old, grey truck they’d hired for the week. 

“I didn’t think there was anyone out there ready to flip Stark off,” Desiree said, excited about their enterprise. Quentin smiled at her enthusiasm.

“Trust me, he’s pissed off enough people, we could fill up this whole building. How did Tori bring you in?”

Desiree shrugged. “She said I’d get front row seats to see his reputation go down the drain. Sounded good to me.”

“Yeah,” Cole joined in, standing right behind them. “Can you imagine Stark’s face when he realizes we’re using his own tech against him?”

Quentin and Desiree turned around to share a laugh, but froze in their tracks, staring at Cole.

Something was wrong with him. He was standing, looking at them with a grotesque twist of his face. The upper part of Cole’s face was static, while the lower part seemed to move like some demented spirit.

Desiree shrieked, “Cole, what the hell?!”

Suddenly, Cole’s whole body flickered. It was like he wasn’t really there -

“Cole!” Quentin fumed. Cole’s laughter rang out, but not from the body in front of them. It shimmered again and vanished in a projection of blue voxels while the real Cole stepped out from behind the truck.

“That was good wasn’t it?” He asked, proud of his trick.

Desiree clutched her face, panting. “You idiot! I nearly died!”

Tori stuck her head out from the window of the truck’s passenger seat. “That was well done, actually. How’d you rig it up so fast?”

Cole pointed at the drone, sitting innocuously on the table beside them. Quentin’s jaw dropped.

“I used the monitoring system to get the sensors online and then activated the drone to move around on the table, so it looked like I was moving around,” Cole said, looking down at his PC. “My face didn’t render fully, though. Might need two drones for that, or a lot more sensors. Or just better equipment -”

Quentin’s mind was already working light years ahead. Drone tech, hologram projection, sensors, distraction, server hacks -

“Cole, you’re a goddamn genius,” he whispered.

“Oh? Thanks, Q!”

Cole looked quite pleased with himself. Quentin looked up and Victoria gave him a stunned and incredulous grin.

“You think what I’m thinking, Beck?” She asked. Quentin couldn’t help but smirk back at her.

While Will, Janice, and Tess went on their undercover mission to Fenwick Island, Quentin and Victoria sat down and drew up brand new plans to combine all the tech they had.

Will had counted 67 drone units in the locker, during their first trip to the warehouse facility. Tori could deactivate the trackers and the team could rewrite the coding to suit their needs.

And once they linked it up with the sensor program, they would be able to build a hologram far bigger and more realistic than the ones in the lab.

Drones were movable units. They’d be able to take input of the surroundings and project them back in real-time. Vivien loved the idea and immediately began the base codes. Quentin sat with Gutes to track Stark’s movements.

“PR day,” Gutes snorted, shifting the PC to show Quentin. The screen showed several images from a rushed scene of Stark, Potts, and their one-year-old. The three were walking on the lawn of an embassy, heading towards a car parked in the driveway. Stark was holding the baby in an odd and soft gesture, cupping her little head to shield her from the photographers. 

He didn’t do a good job of it, because another photo on the website displayed a partial glimpse of the infant’s face, blurred.

Quentin could never fathom Stark as a father, much less a genuinely attentive, _good_ father. That just wasn’t the kind of person he was.

“Cute,” he muttered. “What’d they get done?”

“Some official from Wakanda is visiting the States. Potts probably had to sign some documents. Stark had a meeting with the dignitary. The baby probably had no sitter available for the day,” Gutes droned.

“Or, it was a PR stunt,” Quentin sighed, scrolling down to check the feed.

.

**DestinyArrives:** iron fam spotted. My heart just exploded.

**talesbydastaan:** Did anyone see the Dora Milage?

**sandy_talks:** Is that really their kid? I didn’t even know they had one.

**youremydensity:** _@sandy_talks_ Yeah, it’s a girl. This is her first public outing I think.

**RoguePicks86:** Anyone looks at this pic without context would assume that this is from an alternate universe. (After all the shit that’s happened, the multiverse is definitely a thing.) The Starks haven’t changed one bit. They just got older and have a kid. They’re still unbelievably rich, and absolutely detached from the actual clusterfuck the world is going through. How can you lose the battle of the era and go on to settle down and have a family like it’s no big deal? 

**DestinyArrives:** _@RoguePicks86_ You are allowed to recover from trauma, are you aware of that?

**RoguePicks86:** _@DestinyArrives_ Don’t talk as if the whole universe hasn’t gone through trauma. We’ve all lost people. But only some of us have lost houses and cash and everything, and believe it or not, we need some material to survive. Get off my comment if you don’t want the truth to bitch slap you.

**buglebus:** _@RoguePicks86 @DestinyArrives_ We all lost a lot. Some of us have enough of what’s left to keep going and many of us don’t. If we need to keep this species alive, the ones who do have something should help the ones who are left with zilch. Since the Starks are making that effort, maybe cut them some slack?

**RoguePicks86:** _@buglebus_ If you want to work on the watered truth that’s up to you. Like I said, don’t crowd on my comment if you don’t agree with me. Picking a fight will get you nowhere. The Starks are the last people you need any sympathy. I have enough self-pity to get by. They know where they screwed up. We know where they screwed up. Just because some of you can get their morsels to survive, doesn’t make them heroes. You’re not a hero if you cause the problem and make a half-hearted solution for it.

**Borealis_1212:** Is anyone else in love with Pepper Potts? No? Just me then.

**sTaCyVlOgS:** _@talesbydastaan_ The Dora Milage General was at the meeting, I’d heard. No pics though.

.

Quentin knew there were people out there who adored the Stark family. Those who worshiped the ground they walked on. But many were very aware of the scenario everyone was stuck in.

They were facing a problem caused by the Avengers. (Well, Thanos, but he’s dead. What can you do?) And now, they had to keep looking towards that broken group to stay alive. It was a twisted life.

No matter. In a year… or if he was being honest with himself, in a few years, Quentin’s team would be uncovering a layer of the hidden narrative, revealing the real colors of the Starks to the world.

The winner wrote the truth. 

All he had to do was win.

Within three days, Will, Tess, and Janice were back. The mission was successful and in the truck lay 66 disused drone units, discarded by SI.

Quentin grinned while everyone around him cheered. They were definitely on the winner’s path.

**~~~~~**

It took ten months to configure their fleet of drones. Quentin could see why Stark had thrown away some of the units. Consistent system errors were cropping up almost like viruses. Vivien and Tess took several weeks to scrub through the codes and clear everything up. 

But there were at least forty units that were quite adequate to the task. Not perfect or amazing, simply adequate. They would need an overhaul in redesigning. 

However, the best part was that now they had a full schematic of a functioning drone, they could build more of their own. 

Quentin didn’t want to rely on that, though. They didn’t have unlimited funding to splurge on new material for brand new units. While Janice and Will did try and build something with some scraps from old computer models, the team focused on reimagining the holo tech combined with drone specs. 

This was exhilarating. Quentin felt like he was back at SEEK Craft, before the Decimation, working through all hours of the day and night to build something out of his dreams. It felt like he was back at Stark Industries, with the freedom to pursue a brand new scope of holographic technology, without upper management breathing down his back. 

This is what the holo tech should have been used for. Instead of using it for therapy, or weaponizing drones, Stark could have allowed for visceral imagination to take over and build something wholly incredible and beautiful. 

It was a fulfilling endeavor. 

On the fourth anniversary of the Decimation, the team had taken a week off to wind down. The world, nay, the universe was in its ritualistic mourning. 

Quentin didn’t have much of a blood family. His mom had passed away when he was in school, a loss that had devastated the remaining two Becks. His father had been increasingly depressed and irate, striking out verbally against the boy. Quentin had endured the last few years of high-school painfully, dodging his father’s presence. 

Sometimes, when the tongue lashing didn’t suffice, the man pretended that Quentin never existed. Those days were mentally strenuous. Quentin could sit in front of his father and never be looked at or even acknowledged for hours. 

MIT had been a blessed turn of life. Quentin left for college and had cut ties with Elmore Beck. 

He used to keep in contact with his uncle, Vincent. But in recent years, Quentin hadn’t heard from him. It wasn’t Vincent’s fault, Quentin had been very focused on work most of his life. He’d held off on calling his uncle. The local government kept a loose record of everyone suspected to have been erased in the Decimation. Quentin had checked for Vincent’s name and found it. 

Something like grief had strung his heart. He hadn’t spoken to Vincent for more than a decade. It was 2022 and, despite the tight schedules with his team, although he saw them every day, for fourteen hours at a stretch… Quentin was lonely. 

He spent the anniversary walking around one of the sunlit parks that held ten-foot-high stone tablets, each carved with hundreds of names of the departed. There were many others like him, walking about and examining the names. Some had flowers and candles laid out on the ground in front of the pillars. Some had stuck photos on the tablets. Quentin could also see sharpie marks of additional messages written around the solemn names. 

_I miss dancing with you._

_You’re right. Spaghetti and basghetti are very different things._

_Found that album you were looking for - Kingdom of Welcome Addiction_

_Vermillion IS more red than orange._

_I still love you._

Quentin felt his eyes burn. He knew none of the names on the tablet. He didn’t recognize the handwriting of the scrawls in multiple colors layered over the stone. Many of the messages were in different languages. 

The words that he could read spun stories. He imagined a pair, dancing at night in the soft silence of their home. He thought of a bunch of kids arguing about spaghetti and basghetti, none of them willing to google the words to find out. He wanted to listen to the album mentioned, even though he’d never heard of it. He agreed with the stranger, vermillion IS more red than orange. 

The dead were still loved. That will never stop. 

He blinked fast, turning away from the tablet. He didn’t want to go back to his small apartment that he now shared with Gutes. It never felt like home. Home was the sequestered workshop he’d poured his heart and soul into, to create one of the best, most forthcoming inventions of the century. Home was being hunched over a computer, trying to work in the dead of night to build a functional software for the newly activated drone units. 

Quentin was just deciding to head to the nearest bar when he ran into a familiar face. 

Marion steadied him as he stumbled. 

The neat, placid afternoon of the sunny park melted away at her presence. Quentin’s face dropped into a frown. 

He hadn’t seen her in more than a year. Marion had changed. Her jacket was slightly new, not as many rips in it as the one she used to wear before. She had better shoes and her hair wasn’t as frizzy as it mostly had been. 

“Hey, Quentin,” she said, in a level tone. 

He sighed. “Hey, Marion. It’s… it’s nice to see you.” 

They stood apart, like unwilling acquaintances. It hurt him to think of her that way. He wished they hadn’t moved away like that. 

“You look like you need a good night’s sleep,” she said, eyes roaming his face. 

“Yeah? You look like you’re doing well.” 

“Oh… thanks. I… I gotta new job,” she mumbled. “At one of the offices of the Statesman Charity. It’s government-funded, so the pay’s good.” 

“That’s great,” he replied, frown disappearing. “I’m glad it’s worked out for you.” 

Marion nodded, looking away towards the rows of stone tablets. “Were you searching for a name?” 

“No… not in particular. You?” 

Marion hesitated, but answered anyway. “Taylor’s mentioned in the fourth column, second row.” 

He turned to look at the mentioned tablet, as though he could read the name from a distance. 

“Do you come here often?” 

“Every week,” she said, promptly. “My office is right across the road, see?” 

Quentin looked to where she was pointing. There was a building opposite the entrance of the park, rather dull and dreary… with one full section open without walls. 

He blinked. “What happened to it?” 

Marion waved an arm, “They’re trying to make space for a small shelter, a temporary space to get people off the streets. We’re going to be moving to a new building in a year, anyway, so the whole thing’s supposed to be demolished… I dunno.” 

He turned back to her. Marion sounded like she’d sorted out most of her priorities. She’d gotten a stable job, probably had a better place to live in, visited Taylor’s name every week… 

Like she said, she was trying to find a life away from Stark. Quentin couldn’t begrudge her that. 

“I’m happy for you,” he told her, honestly. 

She looked a little surprised, but took it in stride. “Thanks, what about you?” 

He almost smirked. “Still the same, workaholic and obsessed with an ex.” 

Her shoulders dropped. “Right.” 

They stood there, in partially awkward silence. Then, Quentin muttered, “I should probably get going. It’s good to see you, Marion.” 

She didn’t say anything as he turned to leave. 

****

**~~~~~**

“Trial run 29, Will at the helm, commence,” Janice spoke out loud.

“Commencing,” Will replied.

Quentin stood by the table that held three different monitors. Will and Vivien were seated in front of the displays. Vivien kept an eye on the sensor readings as Will gave the four drones the right directions.

Everyone else backed away to give the drone units a wide space.

Quentin held his breath as the drones hovered in the air, and began to project layer upon layer, compositing an image right in front of them. The projection hid the drones from view and made it look like there was nothing in the middle of the large room.

“Cloaking sequence is good,” Vivien called out.

“Step 2,” Janice said.

Will used a toggle switch to better control the drones’ movements. “Step 2, rendering complete.”

The middle of the room went bright for a moment as a new image came into sight. A sleek Audi, shiny black, sat in the middle of the room. The car looked real enough, with every side viewable from any angle.

“Initial prognosis is looking good. Composite is stable,” Vivien said.

Quentin pushed himself off the wall and walked towards the projection of the car. He could feel everyone’s eyes on him as he examined the 3D image.

The cover of the car looked metallic enough and the paint reflected his face in just the right amount, neither like a mirror, nor like water. He walked around the car, taking in the sight of the black tires, which had small splatters of mud. He smiled.

The image looked authentic. The tires were pressed at the right pressure to make it look like it was a very heavy thing, resting on the floor.

Quentin looked at Will and said, “Start it.”

“Step 3,” Janice said.

Will studied the screens and said, “Audio and tactile input, done.”

The car was turned on like someone was seated inside and started it. The purr of the engine revving echoed around the hall. Quentin could feel the tremor of the noise through the floor, through his shoes.

He grinned.

“Visual, audio, and tactile composites are stable,” Vivien said, smiling as well. There were claps and whoops from the team.

This wasn’t just successful trial, this was a test to see if they could build something without a reference. The car in front of Quentin wasn’t the projection of an already existing Audi car. It was designed and built from scratch by them, with the company logo slapped on the front.

Quentin idly wondered how much the design would cost if they sold it to the car company. It would be a good way to get more funds.

“Trial 29 is a success,” Quentin said and everyone cheered louder.

If Quentin thought nothing else could top this result, he was wrong. 

Dana and Gutes found the AI specs used in Stark’s drone system.

It was ten in the night, when people were slowly trudging back home when Gutes let out a shout, throwing his hands up in the air.

“What?” Janice called, alarmed.

“Found the new interface for the bastard’s drones!”

Quentin nearly dropped his bag in his haste to run over to Gutes. Dana shifted the main monitor around for the rest of the team to huddle around.

“Three and a half years ago, Stark sent up a satellite,” Dana explained. “It was about the size of three Boeing 737s.”

“A satellite,” Quentin repeated. He sent the drones in a satellite to revolve around the planet…

...so that it could be accessible from anywhere on the planet. Smart.

“This was just before his first public conference after the Decimation,” Gutes said. “Every time he’s out in public, he has his sunglasses on. That’s how he controls it.”

Tess folded her arms. “He’s controlling the satellite using sunglasses?”

“The glasses have a user interface, specially coded only to Stark. I got close enough to him last week, when he came for the anniversary speech at DC.”

Quentin gritted his teeth. Gutes was now showing new documents, with many of the sentences redacted.

“EDITH - a planetary defense system, as scrutinized by the UN panel,” he read out loud.

“Wait a sec, the UN panel?” Will asked, surprised. “This should be public knowledge, the United Nations can’t just keep this secret!”

“The UN isn’t the same as before the Snap,” Victoria said, fuming as much as Quentin. “This is probably on a need-to-know basis. Plus, it says nothing about the panel _approving_ the drones. Scrutiny just means that the panel is due to check the system.”

“He’s not going to let the panel scrutinize anything,” Quentin realized. “As long as it’s on the to-do list, the drone system is a plausible thing, still deniable. Stark has enough satellites around Earth that he could probably hide the actual reason for this launch.”

“Urgh,” Cole muttered. “Remember the one that was supposed to be a defense measure against the Hulk? They trashed a city while using that.”

“Defense,” Janice said, turning towards Quentin. “The UI, EDITH, is defined as a planetary _defense_ system. How does he get away with calling a weaponized drone as a defensive measure?”

“It probably makes sense in his head, I don’t want to get into it,” Quentin stood up. “Is this all you could find about the UI?”

Gutes let out a small groan, “I’ll have to get close to the EDITH glasses to get another round. This UI isn’t as advanced as JARVIS or even FRIDAY. It takes commands literally, and does no intuitive deductions. That or, Stark’s sense of humor is downtrodden these days.”

“Firewalls?”

“Oh, top-notch. I can only access bytes of info before getting out without triggering anything.”

The group fell silent. If Gutes couldn’t get more information about EDITH, they would be severely lacking. It was one thing to have physical evidence of the drones, it was another to be armed with actual paperwork.

“Do you have the schematics of the satellite?” Will asked, pulling Quentin away from his thoughts.

Dana looked up as he wiped away the sand in his eyes. “A rough sketch? None of the specs, though. Why?”

“Show me.”

Dana pulled up the image of the satellite, as drawn by one of Stark’s engineers. Quentin personally thought it looked like the death ray of an evil megalomaniac.

Will clicked a pen and yanked a sheet of paper towards him to start drawing the design on the screen.

He started writing improvised measurements along the dimensions.

“How long is a Boeing 737?” Will asked.

Gutes leaned over to take a look. “That number looks right… jeez, it’s a big egg. How do you launch something into space in secret?”

“Stark probably did it from Area 51,” Desiree piped up. “He owns it.”

“You can’t own Area 51, it’s a secret government facility!” Cole said, rolling his eyes.

“You can if you’re Tony Stark!”

Will tapped on the paper he’d drawn on. “If these measurements are right, I grossly underestimated how many he’s built.”

Victoria let out a long exhale. Quentin could feel the tension build-up. “How many drones are in the satellite, Riva?”

Will cleared his throat, nervous at the sight of everyone looking at him. “At least 1200 units.”

Janice slapped a hand on the table. “Great.”

Gutes threw a pencil at him. “But that’s a guesstimate, right? We haven’t seen the actual blueprints, so -”

“Some of Stark’s earlier designs for housing all the units were way smaller than this one. And those could hold up to 500 drones,” Will said, weary. “With these supposed dimensions, it can have 1000 drone units, minimum. It would also have space for any automatic repair work on the drone bodies.”

Victoria mumbled, “That number is either really good, or really bad.”

Quentin glared at the screen. “If we play this right, it’s really good. It’s a freakin’ satellite. Whatever kind of cloaking arrangement he could have on it, it should still have loopholes and drawbacks.”

“This is Stark we’re talking about,” Cole pointed out.

Gutes shrugged, “I found a backdoor to access some data that passes through his glasses. His tech is one of the best, but if you’re smart enough, you can find the weak spots. A satellite that big will have its own communications tower.”

Janice pursed her lips. “Does he still own Stark Tower?”

“No. That’s sold. But he probably has a tall enough building anywhere in the city or outside, with a beacon to hold good signal strength with the satellite,” Tess answered.

Quentin caught Desiree struggling to hide her yawn. “Okay, we’re done for the night. Back tomorrow at ten, we’re going to start the next trial runs and Cole, you’ll be with Gutes and Dana to track the tower Stark could be using for the satellite.

“Oh,” Cole didn’t look too happy about that. Gutes slapped him on the back. “You heard Beckingham! Team, move out!”

It took long enough to track down the building they needed. It was an unassuming five-storey office building with strict security. There was a mobile tower planted on the terrace, visible and shiny even through the coarse and dusty air.

Quentin sat in his nondescript van with Victoria and Dana. They observed the tower and the guards patrolling the building.

“Hmm,” Victoria scoffed. “Nothing fancy about it. Sure this is Stark’s?”

“Paper trail puts it here,” Dana said, patient. “He bought the place a while back, way before the Snap. But the tower looks well kept.”

“Guards would be a problem,” Quentin noted. There were two men on the beat, marching around the building. One guard sat in the security box by the gate, barely visible through the tinted window.

“It’s an auditing company,” Dana explained. “They work in different fields. SI might have only a couple of floors here.”

“Top two floors, then. Direct access to the tower,” Victoria suggested.

Quentin shook his head. “Stark doesn’t share. He owns the building and all the floors. Potts could have a new auditing division we didn’t know. Either way, the server for the satellite has to be here.”

“So, what’s the plan?”

He sat back, thinking it over. Security would be 24/7. Stark’s paranoia had created the ultimate weapon. He wasn’t about to let that server be unattended at any time of the day.

“We need to find out when the shift changes happen,” Quentin said and Victoria nodded. “Backgrounds on the guards and the new division. This place isn’t listed as part of the SI’s territories. Stark may not come here regularly. And if he doesn’t activate the system, the server would be on standby mode with general updates. So it’ll have a team of people looking over it.”

Dana muttered, “Sounds boring.”

“It would be boring,” Victoria echoed, looking back up at the building. “Boring enough that one of them might want a night out.”

Quentin chuckled. “None of the dating apps work for you, Tori?”

“Oh please, I’m not into that scene. But seriously, a ten-hour shift to monitor a server that isn’t greenlit yet? They’ll slip up. We just need to be at the right place at the right time for it.”

She had a point. If they could find a weak spot in the people who managed the server, they could sneak someone like Will or Vivi in to hook up to the mainframe and get the vital data they needed.

They found the right person. A bored employee who had the graveyard shift at ensuring the mainframe was in perfect condition had no problem pouring drinks with Victoria and Quentin. Dennis Stacker was in his late twenties and stuck in a dead-end job unless the planet was being attacked and Stark decided to trigger the drones.

Dennis had no problems sharing jokes with them. He had his grumbles about SI and seemed interested in what Quentin had to say about the drones.

“Yeah,” Dennis said after his fourth whiskey. “Drones are trippy, man. I was there when Stark came in for the annual check-up. It was rough, you wouldn’t believe how many protocols he ran with the system. He had a command for any kind of Avenger level threat. We were there for so many hours!”

“Yikes,” Quentin said, sympathetic. “Didn’t he give you a break?”

“I’m supposed to keep a record of everything the server has to do under the EDITH commands. Believe me, I would have easily slept. But it’s not every life when Tony Stark decides to hand over spare keys to his defense system.”

Quentin and Victoria tried not to look too excited. “Spare keys?”

Dennis shrugged, rubbing his eyes. “Well, not keys as such. More like an _in_ to the system? I can’t give any commands, I’m just the night shift.”

“But you’d know when the EDITH server has to come online, right?” Victoria asked.

“Yup! It’s easy ‘cause the main dial would light up like a Christmas tree. Nobody’s activated EDITH, so it’s dead silent now. I could die in that room and still do my job.”

Quentin winced. “That sounds terrible, Den. What d’you do for fun?”

Dennis squinted at him. “PUBG and DnD, what else? Perks of having access to the WiFi with not much else to do.”

“Too bad,” Victoria sighed, dramatic. “Imagine if the server room got a test. You’d get some recognition that way.”

Dennis looked up, eyes watery. “Test?”

“Yeah, like a trial. That must be fun, right? Has Stark done an actual trial run or has it only been a system check-up?”

Dennis grimaced. “He might have done it on the day shift… or before I got the job. Nothing ever happened when I was on duty.”

“Huh,” Quentin said. “Well, if you ever want your life to be more exciting than your next campaign, call us.”

He handed the drunk, sad man a card with a stealth number on it. Dennis made a face.

“Exciting how?”

“Oh, you know,” Quentin said, casual as he stood up. “A situation where your job actually matters. Call it an audit of the EDITH server.”

Dennis stared. “You guys are auditors?”

Victoria smiled as she paid for the drinks, “We could be if you decide the server needs a test.”

The meeting had gone better than Quentin had hoped. Dennis had been rightfully frustrated with his job and needed a good vent.

They didn’t get a call from him for a long while. Janice suggested other avenues to get into the building, and Quentin agreed. It never hurt to have back-ups and multiple options. While Vivi was looking into job openings at the audit division, Tess began to contact some of her friends who still had ties to SI.

Finally, a good month later, Dennis called Quentin.

“Hey there, Dennis,” Quentin said, holding his cell tight, praying for a leap.

“Hey…” Dennis sounded unsure and less brash than when he’d been drunk. “Were you serious about testing EDITH?”

“Definitely. I personally would love to see Stark come running to see if his little system is having the hiccups.”

Quentin and Victoria hadn’t told him how deep their plans ran. Dennis just wanted to one-up Stark.

“I’m game. As long as it doesn’t cost me anything,” he warned.

“We’re keeping this under the wraps. Don’t worry, Den. It won’t cost you, you’ll actually get paid for it,” Quentin promised.

With Dennis on board, things became easier. Vivien joined as an intern under a fake name. It took her just a few short weeks to get on her supervisor’s good side. At the same time, Dennis began pressing his manager for one more person to do the rounds during his night shift.

Luck was still on their side when Vivi got her contract renewed after three months. Dennis rotated between the day and night shifts. When they finally got the same shifts in the server room, it was October, 2023.

Quentin sometimes could never tell how time flew when he was laser-focused on a goal. It drained his energy but also gave him a constant adrenaline rush to know that he was working towards something that would inevitably define his life. 

He was ready to pull a forty-hour shift, coffee in hand, Gatorade ready, phone on full charge, and all the screens open to show the numbers from the server room. It was close to one in the morning and Tess and he were making careful notes of everything Vivien was sending them.

“Mainframe holds enough of the primary codes,” Dennis was explaining through their video call. He was standing by Vivien in the server room, holding up the phone. “Once she places in the backdoor, you’re good to go. Not saying everything will work smoothly, but you’ll get the unit status directly from the satellite.”

“That’s enough for now,” Vivien said, her voice slightly distorted. “We’re just testing how the system functions. It shouldn’t trip anything.”

“Remember his traps, Vivi,” Tess murmured. “He likes places false subsystems to trick outsiders.”

“Riva was very clear when he explained the coding language. Relax, Tess.”

Quentin was too tense to even smile at Vivi’s casual brush. Dennis was wary too. Tess held back a retort.

“I’m sending the instructions now,” Vivi said.

Quentin waited, watching the empty command prompt on his system. There was a short _ping_, followed by a few lines of code.

“That’s neat,” Dennis mumbled, peering over Vivi’s shoulder. 

She grinned. “It’s in place. Did you get it yet?”

Quentin and Tess read the streaming lines of code that filled their screens. It seemed like it would never end.

“Got it,” Quentin sighed in relief. “Will’s gonna have his hands full tomorrow.”

“Is that why you’ve given him the night off?” Tess asked, yawning.

Dennis looked at Vivi in awe. “When are you going to test this?”

“This week. Interested?”

And with one effortless smile, Vivi managed to convince Dennis to join their team.

****

**~~~~~**

It took only one week for the whole thing to blow up in his face. 

Quentin hadn’t accounted for this. What if Stark needed to use the drones? What if there was an Avenger level threat happening when EDITH was down?

Those answers came in a bad shape. Quentin’s team had taken two days to access EDITH’s server, without triggering any of the alarms. Vivi was excellent at sniffing out waiting traps and Will navigated through the system with unsettling ease.

It was almost too perfect. Their database was copying down as much of the info they could get from the server room.

On the third day, one of the relays were tripped. The team anticipated an automatic halt and immediately stopped the work while EDITH went on selective standby mode to run a diagnostic check. Vivi logged out efficiently, Will backed out and closed all open pathways, and Dennis locked the access for safety.

And two days later, the world imploded.

Quentin had been reevaluating some of their contingency plans to make sure no trail led back to them when his phone began to send constant _pings_.

It was very reminiscent of the times when aliens attacked the planet and social media sites crashed from the influx of activity. The last time this had happened, it was followed by the Snap.

Except now.... Now, people were coming back.

Quentin’s jaw dropped as he checked his Twitter feed. There were gifs and videos already cropping up. Shaking cam footage of dust swirling fast and _reforming into people_.

“Oh my god!” Tess gasped, standing from her spot beside one of the drones. “Oh my - Vivi!”

Vivien’s head whipped up to face her and then Quentin. “Frank!” she gasped.

Quentin stared blankly as the two women rushed out of their underground facility. Will, Cole, and Desiree looked just as perplexed.

“They’re back?” Cole muttered. He turned to face them. “How… it’s been five years!”

Suddenly, everyone’s phones let out a distressed alarm. Quentin looked down and saw a message that shook him to the core.

**Presidential Alert**

**Situation 04/27: Everyone to stay indoors. Extraterrestrial threat detected.**

Situation 04/27 echoed the day when the Decimation had happened. Quentin recalled massive emergency calls made to educate people to take cover in case an alien invasion happened again.

“No,” Will moaned, panicking. “Not again!”

“We can’t leave! We need to call Tess and Vivi!” Desiree yelled, trying to dial their phones. The dial tone kept cutting off, unable to connect.

“Lines would be flooded,” Quentin said, getting to his feet. He looked back at the monitor he’d been using to study fragments of EDITH’s code. Something about it made his blood go cold.

The four of them hunkered in the facility for several hours. It wasn’t until seven in the evening when phone lines were clear enough to allow their calls.

Quentin’s first call was to Victoria.

“Tori! Please tell me you’re okay!”

“I’m fine,” she answered. Her voice shook. “I was at home… did you see the news?”

“We’re watching it right now,” Quentin said, standing by Cole who’d opened some websites on his PC. One site showed videos of people coming back to life. Coming back from wherever they’d dusted to.

Another site showed hastily written articles about a massive explosion that destroyed the Avengers’ Compound, Upstate New York. There were multiple reports of an ensuing battle and incredible energy in the form of gamma rays exuding from the place.

“They’re all back,” Victoria whispered into the phone. “Everyone… Marion called me. Said Taylor’s back. He just appeared in the apartment they used to live in, totally freaked out the family subletting there.”

Quentin felt something akin to relief in his chest. There was also a lot of confusion flowing through him, but the hope that people were coming back was very strong.

“- saying he’s dead. Do you believe it?”

“Huh, what?” Quentin snapped to attention. “Who died?”

Victoria went quiet. “Janice said she heard it from one of Potts’ PAs. Did you know Pepper Potts has an Iron Man suit?”

“What?!”

“I suppose she’d be Iron Woman… but apparently, she called the suit to her and just freakin’ jumped out the window! Something was happening Upstate. There were a lot of explosions.”

“Who died, Tori?” Quentin repeated. Her voice had been trembling, like she couldn’t help the stammer and was rambling to cover it up.

“Stark,” she finally said. “They say he’s dead.”

.

.

“Quentin?”

.

.

_There’s more to life than Stark._

Marion had been right. Quentin couldn’t just let his life be about Tony Stark.

But his life became that. He worked for years with one goal in mind - Take down Stark.

Except…

It was too late.

Because Stark just sacrificed himself to save the goddamn universe.

What was Quentin left with now?

****

**~~~~~**

In another like, he might have learned to move on. He would see people coming back as a sign of hope, a sign to let go of haunting anger and to live with what was given back.

Except now, in this dimension, Quentin’s motivation to work, to live was taken away.

Because Stark had to live and die on his terms. He had to have the last word.

_I am Iron Man._

People forgot his mistakes and attitude.

They forgot what it was like to live in the shadow of one person who thought his money and brains allowed him the reign of the world.

There were multiple funerals for the man.

Vigils and candles were lit in his honor. Murals cropped up, graffiti art on random walls that were admired by passers-by. People left heartfelt messages and comments for the _great man_, seemingly having forgotten that he had never been a _good man_.

Quentin could not go a day without being reminded of Stark and his ‘sacrifice’. People loved to chat about him, wrote about him every day on blogs and papers. _#IronMan_ and _#TonyStark_ were trending every other day. Sales of Iron Man merchandise were at an all-time high. Little kids ran around with fake repulsors and plastic Iron Man helmets. Documentaries were cropping up.

A movie script was being written about him.

Quentin’s head was filled with screams, trying to hold back from strangling the next idiot who wanted to praise Stark.

“There he is!”

Quentin walked down the street, trying to breathe in air that wasn’t dusty, trying to get used to the greater number of people in the city, in the universe.

“Quentin! Over here!”

His name brought him out of his cyclonic thoughts. He slowed down and looked around, searching for a familiar space.

He stopped breathing.

Taylor was crossing the road. Marion was holding his hand. They ran towards Quentin, faces filled with glee and intense relief.

“Taylor?” Quentin muttered, gobsmacked. 

“Oh jeez, you got old!” Taylor laughed, tears filling his eyes rapidly.

Quentin didn’t respond. Instead, he just brought the young man into a tight hug. Marion’s blotchy face couldn’t stop smiling.

They ended up walking across the gardens where the stone tablets remained. It was a grim remembrance of the past five years. Taylor had been stunned to see rows and rows of tablets filled with thousands of names.

“I still can’t believe it,” he mumbled, grabbing both Marion and Quentin’s hands to hold. “It feels like an awful dream. One moment I was in our apartment, feeling… weird, and the next, Marion’s gone and the whole room’s changed! The TV shifted places, there were strangers in our home.”

He rolled his eyes, “I guess I was the stranger in their home.”

Quentin huffed a short laugh. “That must have been a trip.”

“Yeah. I just blinked and the whole world spun around the sun five times. Unreal.”

Marion’s expression soured for a brief moment. Quentin wholeheartedly understood her. It was a blink for Taylor, a moment for the dusted. But it was half a decade for the rest of them. That was enough for lives to have changed, minds to have differed, hearts to have broken and moved on.

“Sorry,” Taylor muttered, leaning towards her. Marion gave him a comforting smile.

“How’re you doing now?” Quentin asked, trying to find ways to steer away from distressing subjects.

“Okay, I guess. I’m staying with Marion for now. But…”

He looked dubious, as Marion responded, “I told you, Tay. You can stay there, I’m good.”

“I know… I’m glad.... It’s just, if you did move on… that’s fine.”

Quentin knew he shouldn’t stay for that intimate conversation. But he decided to offer a solution anyway. “If it’s too uncomfortable, you can bunk with Gutes and me? Riva’s still uptown -”

“That’s alright! Tay can stay with me,” Marion rushed her words.

Taylor blinked. “I’d like that. But I also need to search for Gini.”

“Who?”

“My aunt. We weren’t that close,” Taylor shrugged. “But she blipped too, so I have to find her. At least make sure she’s safe.”

Quentin stared, “What did you say?”

“What? My Aunt Gini, she was in Connecticut -”

“No, that word… did you say ‘blipped’?”

Marion laughed, nervous. “Yeah. Some people are calling it that. All the time they lost? They’re calling it the Blip.”

Quentin couldn’t say anything for a moment. The words weren’t making sense in his head.

“Wh- what?”

“I guess it’s ‘cause, to us,” Taylor tried to explain, “To us, it feels like a blip. So, we Blipped out on five years.”

“Isn’t called the Snap? The Decimation?”

“Oh no, there’s a difference,” Taylor continued, seemingly unaware of the wretched sense of being in Quentin’s head. “See, there were three Snaps. The first one was five years ago, the one that purple alien made to wipe out half of us. The second Snap was the Avengers bringing us all back. And the third Snap was Iron Man, killing the purple alien army.”

Marion rubbed her face, tired. “I think the Hulk did the second Snap.”

“Oh yeah? Cool!”

Quentin tried to take calming breaths. “So, why are we calling it the Blip now?”

“Blip is the five year period that was lost -”

“No,” he gritted his teeth. “Why are we calling an apocalyptic period of our lives by a term that means an insignificant speck? It wasn’t a blip for us, we had to live through that. We barely survived. Who the fuck thought it would be _funny_ to call the worst time of the universe the _Blip_?!”

Quentin vaguely realized he was yelling. Taylor and Marion looked stunned and speechless.

“Quentin -” Marion whispered, but he cut across her. “But of course, that’s just it, isn’t it? Now that everyone’s back, we can just go about forgetting the past! It doesn’t matter that ecosystems and civilizations nearly collapsed, what matters is that _Iron Man saved the day_ and once again, doesn’t have to face the actual fallout. He’s never seen the fallout, and he’s never going to have to now! How fun!”

He left the pair in shock, marching away from the park, from the names on the tablets, just trying to quell the raging storm in his head.

Quentin rushed back to his shared apartment. Gutes wasn’t there, which was a good thing, because Quentin kicked the small futon, punched a cushion and screamed into his mattress.

The noise in head wouldn’t calm down. There was anger in his bones and adrenaline in his muscles. He grabbed at his hair, ripping out several strands, trying to let the pain dim the heaviness in his chest.

He stayed in bed until evening, when Gutes came back with even worse news.

“Beck…? You okay?”

Quentin faced the wall, curled up beneath his comforter. His pillow was stained in angry tears. He grunted, letting Gutes know he was awake and listening.

“Right. Um… Dennis was still monitoring the EDITH server last night… he said there were some protocol changes done around midnight. Not sure what exactly, so he called me. I did a follow-up…”

Quentin didn’t say anything, waiting for him to continue.

“Stark’s will was read yesterday. The controls for the EDITH system was passed to somebody not on our database. I checked Potts and Rhodes’ sections, they don’t hold the command.”

Quentin stared at the wall. The words made sense, but his brain didn’t seem to want to form any kind of response to that.

Gutes hesitated, “It’s not with the security system, not even Happy Hogan. Stark had a personal intern working at one of his labs in the Massachusetts office. Janice is tracking him. Could be a long shot. I mean, EDITH’s probably with Rhodes or one of the Avengers. Maybe even SHIELD -”

It wouldn’t go to SHIELD. Quentin knew this. Not even to an Avenger. Rhodes was their best bet. Stark wasn’t a team player, he had very few people he could count as friends.

Gutes waited, but when Quentin didn’t say anything, he sighed. “Marion called. She said you were upset… um, Taylor’s back. That’s nice to hear.”

“I’ll talk tomorrow,” Quentin said, brisque. He kept staring at the wall till Gutes got up and left the room.

He just had to do it, didn’t he? Stark, of course, had to screw everything up for Quentin, no matter what the situation was. Quentin hated him. The man was tormenting him from beyond the grave.

Stark won. It was as simple as that. There was nothing else left for Quentin, now.

****

**~~~~~**

It took him a week to gather his sensibilities. Quentin figured he’d need to call Taylor and Marion to apologize. Damage control was going to be tough.

He did get the team to check up on the transfer of EDITH. There was an unlikely candidate in Massachusetts, a 21-year-old by the name of Harley Keener. Keener was registered in Stark Industries as a favored intern of Tony Stark.

Quentin and his team had no clue why a Junior in MIT would occupy such a high position at SI. Smarts were one thing, but this literal child had no business working in actual Stark labs if rumors were to be believed.

They scoped him out. Keener didn’t seem anything special. Grew up in Rose Hill, Tennessee with a mother and a younger sister. Father bailed out years ago. High GPA, lax at studying, school counselor had suggested getting him to skip a few grades. Strengths at STEM courses. 

Gutes made sure to check if Keener’s father wasn’t actually Tony Stark. Quentin wouldn’t put it past the man. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case.

But why would an intern be in such thralls for Stark royalty?

“Keener was in his will too,” Tess had commented, one dreary afternoon. “Stark left him access to two of his old suits, ones without nanotech, and some project headings. Also, a fund for his family. He’s obviously important.”

Quentin just wanted to fall to the ground and stay there for the rest of eternity. His motivation, the reason to keep pushing, keep breathing and living another day was gone.

He didn’t though. Instead, he called up Marion, trying to schedule a meet-up. 

“You can come over for dinner?” Marion had said, hesitant. “If that’s okay. I know Tay wanted to talk.”

“That sounds great,” Quentin mumbled. “Yeah, I… I’ll be there. Today?”

“The weekend. He’s up in Connecticut now… are you feeling better, Quentin?”

He didn’t want to lie to her. “Not really. But I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” she said. Quentin knew it wasn’t okay.

The team had stopped their research after everyone had come back. But Janice and Dana were still working on tracking a soft copy of Stark’s full will.

Besides, Quentin knew many of the team weren’t enamored with _Operation: Stark’s Ruination_ anymore, especially since Stark beat them to it.

Saturday evening was a noisy one. Quentin could already see more vehicles on the roads, more people just… everywhere. Had it always been this crowded?

Dinner was a small affair. Marion had been busy the whole day and Taylor had just managed to reach a couple of hours before, so the three of them enjoyed a few boxes of pizza.

“I was going through a funk,” Quentin said, grimacing at Taylor’s eagerness. “That’s not an excuse, but I’m really sorry about everything.”

“That’s alright, Q,” Taylor said, readily accepting the apology. “I think I crossed a line. I’d never know what it’s like to have gone through the whole thing. Marion explained it to me. You know what she does?”

“Yeah, she’s at one of the government shelters.”

Marion raised her eyebrows, nodding. “Yeah… everyone’s processing it differently. You’re allowed to rant and rave.”

Quentin held back a retort. He hadn’t been ranting. It was a legitimate thing to rave about. Honestly, _Blip_.

“How’s your aunt?” 

Taylor’s smile fell. “She’s not that great. Her arthritis keeps flaring up. I got her to a doctor, we had to wait for three hours just to get an appointment. Everything’s overbooked now, there’s just so many people who need help.”

Quentin winced, “Sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

“Not much. She needs someone to look out for her, though. I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”

Marion stared down at her pizza. “Did you already decide?”

“Not yet. It would be easier for me to take care of her if she comes to New York, but she’s lived in Connecticut her whole life.”

Quentin sat up, “It’s not that far though.”

“Not for us. She hates traveling. If she shifts, it has to be permanent,” Taylor groaned. “I’d need to find a place for her to stay here, and that’s out of the question.”

Quentin stared. “You’re going to Connecticut?”

“Might be,” Taylor looked towards Marion. “Still haven’t decided.”

She nodded, chewing fast.

Taylor got a call, presumably from his aunt, and went to the next to room to answer it. Quentin waited till he was out of hearing range, before turning back to Marion.

“You okay?” He asked because Marion had been strangely aloof through the evening.

She didn’t say anything for a bit, choosing to finish her piece. Then, she whispered, “I think he’s in love with me.”

Quentin blinked. That was unexpected.

“Well, obviously. You two have been together for… oh shit.”

She snorted. “He still looks at me like we can go back to where we were before. And I do love Tay, but… not like that. Not anymore.”

They stayed quiet, listening to Taylor’s muted voice, trying to coach his aunt that 4G speed was different from 4 GB of data.

Quentin thought of Marion’s weekly ritual of visiting Taylor’s name on the stone tablet. He thought of her employment at a government support center so she could help people who were at their worst.

Marion had moved on. The world had moved on while the dead had been dead. 

Strangely enough, Quentin was still stuck.

“Do you want him to move to Connecticut?” Quentin asked in a low voice.

She shrugged. “That would be selfish, but yeah. I just can’t tell him that I want to break up, can I?”

Quentin whistled. He couldn’t remember a time when Marion and Taylor hadn’t been dating before the Snap.

She shook her head. “I’m glad you haven’t told him about your little… project.”

He tried not to get angry. “I’m here to have a good time, not to ruminate Stark’s failures.”

Marion swallowed. “I’m saying… Tay’s not going to like the whole revenge plot -”

“I bet you’re glad he’s dead,” Quentin muttered. “Just so I can’t execute my revenge plot.”

She glared at him. “Whatever faults he had -”

“God, let’s not get into this.”

“Fine. I just hope you get something constructive to fixate on now.”

He scoffed. “Constructive? You mean something only you can approve?”

“Really, Quentin?” Marion demanded. “Is it so hard for me to wish you can move on?”

“Not everyone moves on, Marion!” he hissed. “Some of us are stuck inside our heads, with the same thoughts fueling us, with the same emotions energizing us. You don’t get to tell me how to feel!”

“No,” she said, face sour. “But I can ask you to react better. There’s a difference between feelings and actions. You can feel bitter and angry, you can’t lash out at people.”

He sat back. “So you are sour about me yelling at you. Is that it?”

Marion shook her head. “I don’t want to get into this now.”

Quentin gritted his teeth. “I don’t think we’ll ever get into this. And that’s fine by me.”

The night ended on a dour note. Taylor seemed confused about the sudden sullenness between Quentin and Marion, but he didn’t pry too much into it. They finished the pizza, said their goodbyes and Quentin walked into the night, feeling a heavy weight settle in his chest.

Marion would never understand. She wasn’t left at the starting line like Taylor had been, and she wasn’t stuck in the middle like Quentin. She’d reached the end, found a purpose (a society approved purpose) and was now trying to work her life into that path.

Just when Quentin thought his day couldn’t have gone any worse, he reached home and faced Janice and Gutes sitting in the living room. 

Quentin stared at the pair, trying to wrap his head around why they would look so nervous and serious. 

“Are you getting back together or breaking up?” he asked, half-jokingly, half unprepared for the bad news they were undoubtedly going to dump on him.

Gutes switched on a tablet and handed it over to him. Quentin took it slowly, making sure to keep his expression level.

The widescreen showed the image of Stark standing alongside a young boy. They were throwing up bunny ears behind each others’ heads facing the camera. The boy was grinning, and Stark had a barely-there smirk, marred by the goofy poses. They also held a plaque in front of them, upside down, that read as a certificate from Stark Industries.

Was this Harley Keener? The unknowing fresh-faced man who had inherited Stark’s most advanced weapon tech? Quentin felt an odd kind of hate boil at the sight of him. What could be worse than Stark handing over EDITH to a twenty-one-year-old intern?

“That’s Peter Parker,” Janice said, before clearing her throat. “Sixteen, goes to Midtown School of Science and Technology, lives in Queens, used to intern for Stark before the Snap.”

Quentin stared at the man, no, boy’s face, unable to understand why Janice sounded like she’d rather chew glass. Okay, not Keener, but who’s Parker? And why was she showing him this?

“Jan found him while checking Keener’s records,” Gutes explained. “Parker was working on one of Stark’s suits before it was passed on to Keener. He’s… they were pretty close to Stark.”

They were working up to a point, Quentin figured. More importantly, why the hell would a sixteen-year-old intern work on an Iron Man suit? That was worse than a twenty-one-year-old intern working on one.

“And why is Parker important?” Quentin asked, quite aware that his voice was not doing a good job of making him seem calm.

Janice stared at him, wary. “Stark might have made a mistake.”

“Stark’s made a lot of mistakes.”

“No, but this time… maybe he meant to switch it to Pepper Potts and not Peter Parker, if he’d said the initials -”

Quentin’s self-control was waning. “Switch. What?”

“EDITH,” she finally said. “Stark’s passed the glasses onto Parker. His will states that Parker got a trust fund for college, a new insurance policy, another two of his suits, again, old ones, and the EDITH glasses.”

For once, the noise in his head subsided. There was a calm to it, as though his neurons had stopped firing electrical pulses for a blessed second.

The chaos rushed back in like a snapped rubber band.

“What?” Quentin choked, gripping the tablet hard. The smiling faces of Stark and Parker seemed to mock the absolute pain that rocked his life.

****

**~~~~~**

“Change of plans,” Quentin said, tersely.

His team looked up at him from their spots around the underground facility. The drones sat by a corner, well maintained, Stark paint and logo scrubbed from the metal bodies. Their monitors were on the tables, running numerous programs in the background.

The team minus others who’d come back from the Snap sat in the hall, waiting for Quentin to announce that they were stopping the project; stopping the whole revenge plan.

Tough.

Quentin turned around one of the monitor displays to let it face the team. There was a group photo of a dozen kids in yellow blazers, grinning at the camera. A tall girl in the middle was lifting up a trophy.

“Midtown High’s Decathlon team,” Quentin explained. He then stabbed a finger towards a boy, plain-looking, practically camouflaged in the back.

“And that’s Parker. That’s who’s been given a state of the art drone system, designed by Stark. I don’t know about you, but I think that was a very senile and dangerous move.”

Cole nodded, wide-eyed. Nobody made a sound.

“We’ve no reason to understand why a sixteen-year-old child would be handed the reins of an empire. Unless he’s a secret love-child of Stark, which we checked. He’s not. He’s not been groomed for a position of power until his internship in 2016 which lasted up to the first Snap in April, 2018.

“While his job post was public record, there is no evidence to back the fact that Stark saw Parker as the most suitable replacement of himself. Not Rhodes, who is a Veteran, a Colonel in the Air Force, his best and longest friend since the 80s. Not Potts, who runs SI and has run it even when she was just his secretary, the one woman who he trusted with his company and life. Not even Hogan, a long-standing friend, the Head of Security, in fact.”

Quentin clenched his jaw. “Leaving aside the fact that Stark had a dismal number of friends, he’s had three excellent choices to grant EDITH. Yet, he didn’t. Does anyone know why?”

He asked the question like a teacher, losing patience with his students. His team looked at each other and Dana asked, “Is that rhetorical or are you really -”

“No, I’m really asking,” he said, trying to keep his cool. “I don’t know why Parker is in charge. I don’t know why a kid with zero experience who was Snapped, apparently trumps the choices of Rhodes and Potts.”

Vivi raised a hand, “Parker worked for Stark for more than a year. Could he have helped with EDITH?”

“Good point,” Quentin nodded. “His grades show incredible stats. He’s in a school of STEM geniuses on a full scholarship; credit where it’s due.”

“Maybe Parker has been groomed for it,” Janice suggested. “We checked his background. It’s a classic tragedy. No parents, a late uncle, raised by an aunt by herself. Stark must have liked that.”

Quentin’s shoulders slumped. “You mean, he wanted to see himself as a father figure?”

“Could be,” Victoria said, sitting up as everyone turned to her. “Just because Parker isn’t his kid, doesn’t mean Stark didn’t see him as one. Let’s rewind to 2016. The Avengers fought and broke up in Germany. Stark was having problems with Potts, remember?”

“Lovers’ spat,” Gutes muttered.

“Right! So, he was in a miserable place! Maybe he comes across Parker’s application for the September Grant, sees something fresh and new, someone with no baggage regarding superheroes, but with enough of a tragic past that he would depend on Stark. Someone normal and smart and very bright,” Victoria added. “Kids can bring out the best in people.”

Desiree shrugged at that. “I never thought Stark could be father material till he had his daughter.”

“Maybe they thought to have a kid after he lost Parker,” Victoria realized.

Quentin frowned. “That goes beyond a regular employer-employee relationship, Tori.”

“True. I’m betting it was more of a mentor-mentee relationship,” Janice said, “Maybe Stark had long-term plans for Parker, regarding SI. There’s an R&D post reserved for him after his college graduation.”

“Of course, there is,” Quentin grumbled.

“What I still can’t wrap my head around,” Cole piped up. “Is why he would leave the glasses behind for Parker? I mean, he died during that battle, right after the second Snap brought everyone back. When would Stark have had the time to change his will?”

The others fell silent. That was a damning question with very few likely answers.

“Was he so confident that whatever their mission was, it would work?” Dana asked, incredulous. “After five years of no news, the Avengers figured out a way to bring them back, what was Stark’s first thought? Give Parker the EDITH glasses?”

Quentin looked back at the photo of the AcaDec team. Their smiling faces were so far removed from the situation.

“He changed it before they went with the plan,” Quentin whispered, still deep in thought. “Stark wasn’t sure if he’d make it, so he changed the command controls to Parker before the second Snap.”

There was no response to that. Quentin felt the buzz of his head grow louder. Did Stark go into the plan guessing he would die? Nobody outside the Avenger group even knew what that plan entailed. Whatever it was, it had blown up. It brought Thanos and his army to Earth, even after Captain America had announced that Thanos had died shortly after the first Snap.

Nobody knew the truth of what happened. None of the Avengers thought it important to share it with the world.

The truth was shaped by those still standing. History is written by the victors. The Avengers hadn’t won then, but they were all that was left.

“They’re the worst team on the planet,” Quentin hissed. “Their ridiculous Accords, their strenuous connections… they weren’t a team, they were a bunch of broken people strung together because they had fancy powers. Stark wouldn’t be a hero if he didn’t have that suit of his. Captain America is nothing without the super-soldier serum. None of them are actually heroes, they’re just enhanced or privileged with power and money. That’s not what makes a team!”

He pointed at _his_ team. “I bet my life that if we had EDITH, we could take over the damn world in days.”

They stared, dumbfounded.

“Because we would work on it together!” He stepped closer to them. “Any problem we’ve faced, we learned to solve it in different ways. It’s the same on a larger scale. Can you imagine? EDITH is a monitoring satellite system. It can catch threats, alien or human. The drones are weaponized, we can just target the terrorists or world-ending danger and destroy them before it gets out of hand. We won’t even have to leave the room for that!”

“Quentin?!” Will asked, shocked. “Are you… are you suggesting -”

“That we take EDITH?” he asked. “Yes, I am. In the best of circumstances, the system is supposed to look out for us and make sure that people on the ground are safe. But Stark failed at that. The Avengers failed. And it’s not because they were inexperienced, they were just bad at it. It’s one thing to have power, it’s completely different to know how to wield it, to use it to save everyone.

“Parker is not part of the hero scene. He’s a teenager in high-school. It doesn’t matter if he’s been learning how to work with the drones during his internship, if he’s really smart, he’ll know that he’s very under-prepared for a role like that,” Quentin opens his arms. “Especially if he understands that Stark just sees him as a replacement.”

Janice sat back, “EDITH is an AI, Quentin. She’s not going to just let new control codes to be added in her programming.”

Victoria suddenly grinned, “Then we can just get Parker to hand it over to us.”

The room fell silent again. Quentin was uplifted by her words. She sounded as though she were in.

“EDITH is out there, functional and ready to cause damage,” Victoria said. “And it’s in the hands of a child who has no clue that he has access to one of the most sophisticated weapons on the planet! We just need to convince him that he isn’t ready for responsibility like that. When he sees someone with a better understanding of the drone program and the holo tech, the way all of us have, Parker could be swayed to just transfer the controls to us.”

Vivien dropped her head into her hands, “He’s not going to just hand them over to strangers!”

“No…” Gutes said slowly. His eyes lit up like he had an idea. “There’s a better chance that he’d give it to the Avengers. Or to Potts. Because that’s who he knows would benefit from this. But Parker doesn’t know that EDITH is with him. Dana, what did the will say?”

Dana sighed. “EDITH has been registered under Parker’s biometrics. He is allowed to activate it when he turns eighteen years, or in the event of an emergency that requires the use of the program.”

Quentin shook his head. “We can’t wait that long. He turns 18 in less than two years.”

Vivien frowned, “But if we wait for some catastrophe to hit the planet -”

“We don’t have to wait!” Victoria cheered. “We can orchestrate it!”

Quentin and the others watched her, wide-eyed.

“Come on, guys! It doesn’t have to be a full-fledged disaster. We just need everyone to think it’s a big problem. Big enough to warrant EDITH’s help. We have all we need right here!”

She waved her hands towards the drones in the corner. They stared at the units, rebuilt, refurbished, and reprogrammed, working with a 100% productivity, without a flaw.

“We stage an attack. Destroy a few places. Bring in our hero to save the day. Someone who’s on top of their game, who’s smart enough to figure out a way to defeat whatever monster it is, someone who’s strong enough to fight it,” Victoria said with a flourish.

Tess laughed, “Destroy stuff and save the day?”

“What makes a hero, Tess?” Victoria demanded. “A villain.”

“But what makes a villain?” Gutes wondered.

Cole grinned, “Presentation.”

Quentin stared at his crazy group of friends. He wouldn’t know where he’d be without them.

****

**~~~~~**

They began their altered plan. It was very different from _Operation: Stark’s Ruination_. Now, their goal was to simply obtain EDITH…

And control a good chunk of the world.

Quentin got the giggles if he thought about it too much. It was perfect. They’d be able to accomplish so much more with the assistance of an all-knowing AI. Global disasters could be stopped in a pinch, massive cataclysms would never see the light of the day, real threats could be taken care of before the problems even began.

They’d save the world and do it far more gracefully than the Avengers could ever have hoped for.

But to get there, they needed to cause a lot of damage.

That was fine. Quentin’s team knew that collateral damage was very necessary to achieve this new vision. **Operation: Energize EDITH** was a go.

Two months into the game, they faced a problem. Or rather, Quentin did something very, very bad.

They were working in the dead of the night in the same underground facility. Dana and Quentin had been tracking the Parkers, searching for any opening to take. A weakness to exploit, though that sounded harsh.

While Tess and the others worked on the holo tech and the drones, Vivi approached Quentin, wringing her hands. Her nervousness was a new thing. Vivi wasn’t one to hesitate on a course of action.

“How’re the new protocols?” He asked her, trying to soothe whatever it was that was bothering her.

“They look good. We’ll be trying in the morning… can I talk to you, Q? Over there?”

Quentin clapped a hand on Dana’s back and stood up to move outside the facility. They emerged onto an old and unused helipad that was open to the night sky. The stars were barely visible under the cloud of city dust.

“You’ve been a little worried for a week, Vivi,” he said, making sure to smile to let her relax.

Vivi sighed. “Yeah… it’s just… I was thinking about the EDITH server.”

“We’ve made the drones’ codes compatible with the server. It’ll work.”

“No, not that. Do you remember when I first logged into the system and downloaded the base schematics?”

She looked up at him, almost pleading. Her tone was dead serious. This was not going to be a pleasant conversation.

“Yes, I remember. October -”

“It was the same week when everyone came back,” she said in a rushed voice. “Just a few days difference. My activity caused one of the relays to trip. The server was supposed to go back into standby mode.”

Quentin nodded, “Yes, I remember. It started a diagnostic check for errors. But it didn’t detect us. Vivi, you got in and got out cleanly. It’s fine -”

“Quentin!” She hissed, eyes wide. “EDITH became inaccessible because of us. When the Avenger Compound exploded because of Thanos, Stark couldn’t use EDITH because it was offline!”

He stared at her. This was not what he was expecting.

“Standby mode should have lasted only a few hours. It didn’t go offline -”

“It did! I checked. The diagnostics run took days to complete. It did a full-scale review of every drone unit in the satellite, it checked that all the systems are updated. That was a good amount of time!” Her panic was understandable now. “What if the reason Stark died was because he couldn’t access the drones?!”

Quentin’s jaw dropped. “Vivi! It’s a one in a million chance that our work interfered with his. Stark hadn’t used EDITH ever since the satellite came online. Nobody used the server, except for the times Stark did a full check-up of it. Dennis confirmed that.”

Vivi groaned. “But, he could have tried to call EDITH for help! I mean, it was Thanos! Why wouldn’t Stark want to use the best weapon he’s ever created? The answer is he did! He did try to use it, but EDITH went offline because of our meddling!”

This was bad, this was very bad.

“You got it wrong, Vivi,” he tried to placate her. “We didn’t meddle with it. It was just a coincidence that the attack happened just days after you logged in. And the server wasn’t shut down, it was just running checks. Programs can function during system runs.”

“That’s not what Marion thought!”

Quentin choked. What did she say?

“Marion?”

Vivi winced. “Ugh… I wasn’t supposed to say that.”

“You’ve been talking to Marion about this?” Quentin asked, hoping his voice didn’t raise. “Vivi, she’d hate this plan! She didn’t even like it when we just planned to expose EDITH to the world, what would she think about us actually going after it?!”

“She promised she wouldn’t tell anyone!” Vivi was quick to defend her. “She hasn’t even told Taylor! I mean, they’re not on speaking terms, but point is that she’s keeping it quiet. She was friends with some ex-employees from different divisions in SI, and I needed some help in figuring out Stark’s older coding styles. The ones Will didn’t like.”

Quentin gritted his teeth. “And what does Marion think about all this?”

Vivi screwed up her face. “Yeah, she wasn’t happy at all. She looked pretty shocked. I guess I didn’t do a good job of explaining it to her.”

He pressed his lips together. Marion could ruin things if she told people. But she was smart, she’d make sure the information she had was credible.

Which means she’d want to talk to Quentin about _Operation: Energize EDITH._

“Marion thinks what we did to the EDITH server stopped Stark from accessing the drones during the fight,” Vivi finished.

Quentin shook his head. “I was there when you logged in. Will was on the lookout. Dennis had an eye on the light panel. Tess checked the alarms while you worked on it. You did not mess up, Vivi. You’re one of the best hackers we have.”

“Hacker is an outdated term,” she muttered.

“You’re one of the best,” Quentin continued, firm. “You did not trigger the system into a shutdown. Your protocols tripped a routine diagnostic check of the entire server and satellite feed. EDITH did not go offline.”

She swallowed. “Then why didn’t Stark use EDITH during the fight?”

He let out a long exhale. “We’ll never know.”

The two left the topic there and didn’t mention it to anyone else. Quentin wished that was the end of it, but it wasn’t. A couple of days later, Marion would visit him.

Gutes was taking the night shift on managing their account. If they could sell some car designs for several thousand dollars, then they sure as hell could sell aircraft designs to APCO Configurations for a lot more. They needed funding however was possible.

Quentin was home alone, checking up on the Parkers. In between helping Victoria and Gutes fabricate a story of a hero who could defeat larger-than-life monsters, Quentin needed to keep a detailed record of Parker’s life.

It felt creepy watching the kid’s every move. Right now, Quentin’s monitor showed the feed from a camera the team had fitted on a lamppost across the street. It was disguised as an unused CCTV.

It was one in the morning, but Peter sat on the roof, bare feet dangling over the edge - no fear of heights. The insomniac tendencies were making him worried. The kid did not seem fine. He was fiddling with some bracelets on his wrists. It was very unclear to Quentin.

Quentin waited for him to go back into his room, and try to sleep. Parker instead moved to stand up on the roof.

Oh no.

Quentin sat up at his table, leaning towards the screen. The kid was looking down, eight floors to the ground. He had a determined expression on his face.

_What are you doing? Get away from the edge!_

Parker breathed in deeply and exhaled. Then he touched his wrists and the strangest thing happened.

Red liquid metal began to flow over his skin, spilling from the black bracelets. The metal was blue and gold in some places. It moved like a living skin, covering Parker’s arms, shoulders, face, head, down his torso and the rest of the body, right to his toes.

Quentin watched, absolutely speechless. The metal moved over thin clothes like… like the bleeding edge nanotech of an Iron Man suit.

But this wasn’t Iron Man. Parker now stood on the roof, transformed from a gangly, awkward limbed sixteen-year-old to a lithe and muscled superhuman.

No, superhero.

No. Spider-Man.

Quentin stopped breathing as he recognized the upturned eye-lenses and the webbed design over the suit. This wasn’t the classic red and blue suit he sported pre-Snap. This was a suit that very clearly indicated that Spider-Man was Team Iron Man. That he belonged to Stark.

Spider-Man was Peter Parker. A teenager from Queens with enhanced abilities.

Quentin’s head was filled with white noise. His ears rang constantly growing higher in pitch as he watched Spider-Man _thwip_ a web from the wrist bracelet. The web attached itself to a high point right on the edge of the Quentin’s screen. Spider-Man then took a plunge, jumping off the roof and twisting his body mid-air as he disappeared offscreen.

EDITH was given to Spider-Man, not Peter Parker.

The weapon system was left in the hands of a young Avenger, obviously meant to follow in Iron Man’s overly large footprints.

Stark hadn’t been senile, Quentin realized. This was a calculated move. Parker would spend his time as a superhero, running around to save the city, and fight aliens when needed. He was mentored under Stark to take on the reins of an empire.

It had nothing to do with Parker’s IQ or range of talents in school or his apparent internship in labs. It had nothing to do with Parker’s backstory, although that may have been a cherry on top for Stark. A superhero who wanted someone to look up to?

Stark must have thought that he’d hit the jackpot.

Spider-Man was different from many of the heroes, in that he stuck to the ground and helped when help was needed. Whether it was saving a pet from the tree, or helping kids find a lost ball, or rescuing people from a burning building, or staving off an alien invasion, Spider-Man managed to book a spot in everything.

He was adored by Queens, by the city of New York.

He was a child who fell for Stark’s trap far too easily.

Quentin let out a sudden scream, unable to fight the furious noise in his head. He grabbed a pillow and punched it, nails gripping the seams and tearing the cloth.

Anger was like an old friend. Anger directed at Stark was like a school reunion. Quentin had to take many deep breaths to form a coherent thought.

Even then, he hurt. Everything in his body suddenly came alive, letting him know how tired he was, how the news of Parker being Spider-Man could upset _Operation: Energize EDITH_.

It was one thing to trick a teenager who didn’t know any better. It was a whole other ball game to trick a superhero who didn’t know any better.

Quentin swore out loud. His hands were shaking. Cold sweat broke out around his neck and he rubbing his eyes, feeling them burn.

They needed to revise their plan. Work on having to fool a lot of people including a web-slinging punk -

Someone knocked on the door. Quentin jumped up, alarm bells ringing through his already loud head. He panted with the rush of adrenaline.

Quentin shut the computer screen down and immediately grabbed for his gun from his nightstand drawer.

In the period of the dusted five years, he had had very secure reasons for answering the door with a gun behind his back. He didn’t think things would have changed with an influx of people.

One hand gripped around the gun, Quentin went ahead to open the door.

Marion stood there, with a backpack and a frown.

He stared at her waiting at the entrance before saying, “A little late isn’t it, for a stroll?”

She looked at him, eyes rimmed red. Quentin’s face fell. “Marion… this isn’t a great time -”

“This is important,” she whispered.

He deliberated shutting the door in her face. The anger at Parker and Stark hadn’t abated, and probably would take hours to calm. Locking her out might not send her away, though, so with a sigh, he placed the gun behind a cushion on the futon and opened the door for her to enter.

Marion stepped through, looking around the small place. Quentin remembered that she’d never been here before.

“How’d you know where I lived?”

She shrugged, dropping her laptop bag on the futon. “I asked Gutes last year. He said you guys were staying together… I didn’t drop by, though.”

That was probably best. Quentin nodded. “Why are you here now?”

“Did Vivien talk to you?”

“Yes.”

“Then, you know why.”

He walked around the hall and she followed him into the kitchen. He poured two glasses of OJ. He would have liked a whiskey, but didn’t want to do anything stupid like end up spilling the entire plan to her.

“Whatever Vivi said, you might have misunderstood her,” Quentin said, passing her a full glass. “We didn’t sabotage EDITH.”

“Sabotage is a dangerous word, Quentin. Maybe you weren’t planning that, but the fact remains that whatever you did with the server, stopped Stark from access the drones.”

“You don’t know that!”

Marion slapped a hand on the table. “Not for sure, no. But what d’you think’s going to happen when EDITH’s new owner opens her code and sees an activity log that shouldn’t be there? A log that happened in the same week as the final battle? That’s not a coincidence!”

“Vivi’s cleared her tracks,” Quentin said in a sour note. “No one can trace her.”

“Someone like Stark can trace her.”

“Stark’s dead!”

“Then his protegee will! That kid? Yeah, I did some digging too, Quentin. I found some of his projects. They’re on my laptop. You can take a look. Parker’s great at engineering and computers. His internship logs his hours from Stark’s private labs. He’s worked on the suits! Trust me, he’s smart enough to figure out that something went wrong!”

Quentin pressed his hands against his temples. The noise was turning into a splitting headache. He didn’t want to yell at her.

“Vivi cleared her tracks. How many times -”

“EDITH is a surveillance UI,” Marion growled. “She has back-ups of her back-ups. She will have logging data stored in some remote secondary server somewhere in the world! You cannot be so stupid, Quentin!”

“You think I’m stupid?!” Quentin snapped. “I’m monitoring everything we do! I’m on top of it!”

“Oh yeah?” Marion asked, fuming. “Did you forget that there are other Avengers around here? Stark may be gone, but there were a lot of people who fought in the battle. Anyone of them could have powers we can’t even imagine. And they all know the kid! If he thinks something is wrong, what’s to say he’s gonna keep it to himself? He’ll get the others in on this. Do you want to get on the bad side of a bunch of pissed off superheroes who worshipped Stark?”

“I’m handling it,” Quentin clenched his jaw. “I’m working on this.”

Marion sat back, stunned. “Tell me you’re not going to trick that boy and steal the EDITH glasses.”

“Marion, there are things you don’t know.”

“That’s wrong!” She protested. “You know it is! That’s morally depraved -”

“Get out,” he growled.

“How can you just go ahead with this?!” She asked, raising her voice. “You’re talking about stealing a weapon software. You could go to jail! You could end up so much worse!”

“Marion, just leave!”

“Are you going to cause trouble just to get close to Parker?” She continued, alarmed. “Does collateral damage mean nothing to you?”

“It means a lot!” Quentin yelled. “Stark failed! He failed to save us. He failed to use the drones. He gave up and died! He created EDITH and couldn’t even use her when he needed to! I can! I know exactly how and when to use those stupid glasses and I’ll be better at it!”

Marion’s jaw dropped. “What… Quentin, you can’t -”

“Can’t what?” He spat. “Can’t use EDITH? Why not? Because I don’t have powers? Because I don’t have fancy abilities? Because Spider-Man can lift cars and punch giants, he deserves to take control of the most powerful weapon tech on the planet?”

She stared. Clearly, Marion had no idea that Parker was Spider-Man.

“I’m just the same as Stark,” Quentin said, voice shaking badly. “Smart and ingenious, no powers. But I can’t fly or shoot lasers. That’s what separates us. Oh, and the money, can’t forget about that.”

“Quentin -”

“Collateral damage is just a means to get to where we need. The more damage, the bigger the mess, the better it will be when I clean it up,” he explained, throat dry. His head was throbbing. “Parker’s a boy playing hero. He’s nowhere near the big leagues. Stark knew this, why d’you think he gave EDITH to him? Parker has to grow up following Stark’s mentality to be allowed to use his tech.”

“You can’t do this…” Marion’s voice shook too, but more from fear than anger. “People could get hurt -”

“That’s fine.”

“No, it’s not! What are you even saying?!”

“You won’t understand,” Quentin groaned, trying to stem the pain. “It’s just… I’m not targeting anyone. I’m not going to kill anyone. I just need to get the glasses. Some damage to property and people will just show how serious it gets.”

Marion fell silent. She looked horrified. Quentin tried to focus through the lack of sleep, the haze of pain and anger.

“You can’t say anything, Marion,” Quentin dropped his hands, trying to observe her expression. “It’s completely under the wraps, don’t tell anyone, not even Taylor.”

Marion didn't say anything. Her eyes went towards the small kitchen table where the glasses half-filled with orange juice sat.

“Can I get more juice?” She whispered.

Quentin blinked, not sure why her body was so tense. He turned around to look at the glasses, just as she bolted.

Marion was running for the door.

No.

Quentin was a second too slow to realize that Marion didn’t understand his pain at all. He ran after her, panic filling his brain, heat rushing through his limbs.

Marion’s fault was that she slowed to grab her bag from the futon.

Quentin grabbed her arm and yanked her away from the door. She shrieked and kicked, finding aim at his shin. The sharp hit wracked his skin and he jerked his hand away.

“Wait!” He gasped. “Whatever you’re thinking -”

“Let me go,” she whispered, eyes darting towards the door like a wild critter. “Just… I won’t say anything.”

“Marion, I’ll show you the plans. You’ll understand -”

“I have to leave.”

“No. You can’t! You can’t tell anyone!”

She dashed around the hall, trying to loop around the coffee table. Quentin leaped over it and grabbed her around the middle, tackling her to the floor.

She began to scream. Her fists slammed into his shoulder and he slapped a hand over her mouth, trying to press his weight on her. She wriggled around, trying to escape.

“Marion, listen! I just - stop moving!”

She tried to scream through his hand, but he pushed down hard. Quentin saw her tears and felt his own eyes burn.

“I don’t want to hurt you!” He pleaded. “Please don’t make me hurt you.”

She managed to free one arm, grab her bag from the futon and yank it down. It hit Quentin on the head and he saw stars. The heavy laptop in it made a formidable weapon. 

Quentin groaned, losing his grip on her face. Marion swung the bag again and clipped him in the jaw. 

His head was thrown back and spots appeared in his vision. He rolled away from her and she scrambled to her feet.

Quentin dived again, grabbing for her shirt, pulling himself onto the futon to find the cushion and his gun there.

And then…

He wasn’t sure.

One moment, Marion was ready to bring the bag onto his head again.

The next, Quentin was pushing the cushion into her stomach, holding the gun to it and pressing the trigger.

The noise was somewhat muted. Not too loud.

But the effect was instantaneous. Marion’s body jerked a bit and she gasped, eyes growing wide. She dropped her bag and tried to push away him away, body teetering backward.

Quentin could have stopped. Just like he could have stopped thinking about Stark in every decision of his life.

He didn’t though. He pressed the trigger again and a second shot rang out. 

The cushion blew out against her stomach. It was soaking in red. Marion’s back hit the wall and she slid down, eyes glazing.

She was still breathing in frantic gasps. Her grip had lightened.

Quentin watched her face, almost passively even though he was screaming in his head. Marion couldn’t talk. She kept moving her lips, but there was no sound aside from the panting.

“I’m sorry,” Quentin said and shot her a third time.

That did it. Her eyes went far. Her head fell forward and she stopped gasping.

The apartment fell silent. But, the noise in Quentin’s head only grew louder.


	5. Energize

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin knew what it meant to be away from home while standing in the very house he was born in. That was what it had felt like when his mom passed away. The moment the scent of her perfume faded from the cushions and clothes, the moment he realised that he had to stay in that house with with his deadbeat dad without his mom as buffer… home had gone with her.
> 
> At least Peter had his aunt. Quentin was more than aware that the kid had lost a lot in his short life. But he had some good left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can absolutely believe it took me nearly a month to write this. It wasn't supposed to, but I couldn't find the time to wrangle the chapter the way I wanted it to be.  
Even so, this fic will have only 6 chapters. No more. Seriously.

The carpet was soaking up most of the blood. The three bullets had gone through Marion’s stomach, burrowing into the wall. Quentin dropped to his knees in front of her, still in disbelief.

_She's dead._

_I did this._

_Collateral damage is necessary._

Quentin jerked his head like he was brushing off a tick.

Her eyes were still open, trained on the floor beside his knees. Some part of Quentin imagined her shaking herself awake, getting up and leaving.

He was probably in shock. That self-diagnosis gave way to the next thought.

He needed to hide the body.

Quentin pulled the dirty cushion away from her stomach. Her t-shirt was sporting a band logo, but the blood congealed over the designs. He swallowed, head swirling with unmentionable feelings.

Finally, he laid her out on the carpet, pushed away the futon and coffee table. He rolled her and the carpet into a cylinder and pushed it to the side. The tiles had bloody smears.

Quentin got a screwdriver and a pair of pliers from the closet. He dug the tip of the driver into the wall and used the pliers to yank out the hot bullets. He then got on his hands and knees to find the casings that had rolled under the futon.

Gutes might be staying over at Janice’s. Quentin steadied his shoulders and dragged the carpet roll to the door, peering out of the house to check if anyone was awake and watching. It was way too early for anyone to be out. Marion’s car was parked on the road.

He did it fairly quickly. Almost as though, in another life, he’d done this - hidden a body after a murder.

Carpet roll stuffed in the trunk, Quentin quickly drove out into the city. He had a vague idea of what to do. Maybe dump the body in a cemetery and drive the car into the Hudson? Ditch her in an abandoned field and push her car into a lake?

Toss Marion away like road kill and wipe the evidence.

Quentin blinked away the tears in his eyes. Reality was slowly settling in like a heavy fog. A fog through which panic was descending.

_Focus. Focus. You can freak out after finding a place to hide her. It._

_She’s gone._

_You threw her away._

_Collateral damage._

He gripped the steering wheel tight and went around the crossroads, choosing the silent streets and staying away from the center of the city. The skies were still dark, the clouds foreboding and the air cold.

_Your hands are dirty. There’s blood underneath your nails._

Marion’s old office came in sight. Quentin drove past the park which held a hundred stone tablets with the names of the decimated.

_The Blipped. Stupid name._

Quentin slowed the car down. Her office building had been demolished. He recalled Marion saying something about a renovation, a year ago.

Construction had begun in one section. He stared at the empty rooms, the open walls, the upturned bricks, a 4 ft by 4 ft pit several feet deep, and a cement mixing machine locked to an iron beam.

**~~~~~**

Quentin’s head was clear enough for this. Nothing could mess up the plan.

He went back home and scrubbed the blood off the tiles. It would be difficult to explain why the carpet was no longer there, but Gutes had never liked it in the first place, so that was fine.

Quentin stood in his room. The house smelled of bleach. He tried to open a few windows.

_You’re gonna get caught_, Marion whispered in his head.

No, Quentin thought. You’ll see. Everything will work the way it should.

He was getting used to the noise in his head. That was good, right? Quentin grabbed his computer and opened it. The screen blinked to life, showing the outside view of the top of an apartment.

It confused him for a moment before he realised that this was the Parkers’ place.

Oh god, Spider-Man was a pubescent child living with his aunt.

Quentin reversed the feed, and caught Spider-Man sneaking back to the top floor of the building. The nanotech retreated leaving him Peter Parker again.

The kid had bloodshot eyes. He ripped off the web-shooters and threw himself on his bed like a Disney Princess.

He didn’t move until the sun rose high enough for noises of traffic to take over the day. Quentin didn’t look away from his laptop. Neither moved until the aunt walked in and got the kid to eat some lunch.

Quentin figured they had a lot to work with. Parker was clearly affected by Stark’s death. Spider-Man sightings hadn’t been spotted in the city yet. Both he and his aunt had been dusted, so they were new to the world again. With the right words, he could be motivated to let go of the EDITH glasses.

Except Parker didn’t have them yet. Nobody had told him of it.

Quentin knew Victoria’s idea of rigging up a threat would be sound. Except… if they brought a ‘monster’ to Queens, Parker might try to fight it.

They had a lot to reconfigure.

That night, when Quentin went back to their base to meet up with the others, Vivi found him first. He tried to school his features into a more placid expression, but it probably didn’t work.

“Hey,” she said, looking worried.

“Hey… what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. You just have a weird look on your face,” Vivi answered, squinting. Quentin nodded, stiff.

“Didn’t sleep well. I found something… well, I suppose it is bad news,” He shook his head and raised his voice. “Everyone! Gather up!”

The others moved away from their stations, some tired and some worried. Quentin felt his body lock into one spot and he fought the urge to crumple in on himself. With a dozen pair of eyes staring at him, he said, “I’ve found out why Stark gave it to Parker.”

Vivi and Frank shared a look. The team stood by, wary. Quentin took a deep breath and schooled his looks. He placed his laptop on the table beside him and opened it, showing them a recording of Peter putting on the Iron Spider suit.

Apt gasps and swears could be heard.

“Yeah,” Quentin murmured.

“Whoa, wait!” Tess said, holding out a hand. Her eyes had gone wide. “This… this is different. This changes the terms. Parker isn’t some random teenager and Spider-Man isn’t a run-of-the-mill superhero. He’s an Avenger! That’s a big deal.”

“We’re screwed,” Cole huffed.

“He’ll have contact with other Avengers!” Janice realised. “What if… we can’t just approach him with some ‘threat’ that he can take down himself! The whole point of this plan was to convince Parker that he doesn’t have what it takes to control EDITH!”

The others began to speak up at the same time, arguing about the integrity of **Operation: Energize EDITH**.

Quentin looked up and watched Victoria as she seemed to fixate on the frozen screencap of Parker with the web-shooter bracelets.

Was she having second thoughts?

“It’s a roadblock,” Desiree shrugged. Dennis stared at her, incredulous, “That’s one hell of a road block, it’s a mountain!”

“This can ruin the whole thing!”

“I heard that Spider-Man has eyes in the back of his head, so he can see from all sides! He’ll see us coming!”

“Parker has only two eyes, Vivi.”

“You don’t know, Will. He could be hiding the rest of his eyes in his hair!”

“He looks like a kid… I mean, he is a kid. Look at that baby-face. How old is he, again?”

“Guys!” Victoria barked. “This isn’t ideal but we’ve run into worse things. Yeah, it’s bad. Spider-Man raises the stakes of our operation, but it doesn’t alter the end goal.”

She stepped forward and pressed the space bar, letting the video play. Parker takes off the bracelets and throws himself on the bed, body tense and fingers gripping his pillow.

“He’s distraught,” she explained. “Look at him, he fought that battle at the Avenger Compound. Which meant he was there when Stark died. Watching someone close to you pass away in such a horrific situation can traumatise anyone.”

She tapped the laptop, eyeing Quentin and the rest of the gang. “We’ve been spying on him for a while and this is the first time he’s gone out as Spider-Man. He’s obviously reluctant to put on the suit. He’s not in the strongest mindset now. We can use that!”

Gutes squinted. “That makes us evil, you know? We’re going to trick a vulnerable teen with a hero-complex and a traumatised past to hand over something given to him by his beloved mentor who he probably saw died in an alien battle.”

Quentin hadn’t been able to say anything to get them to stop bickering, but he took over now.

“We aren’t tricking him into something horrible. Parker… Peter is a boy. He knows it’s a lot of responsibility to be a hero. He’s broken, now,” Quentin’s face fell as he watched Peter turn on his back and stare at his ceiling, listlessly. “He doesn’t deserve to be pressured into some leadership role when he isn’t ready for it. Him being an Avenger just solidifies this. Who makes a kid part of a superhero league that was supposed to be the world’s most elite enhanced group?”

“He was being manipulated because of his powers,” Victoria said with a sigh. “That’s terrible. He would never be involved in any of this if he’d been a regular boy in school. Him being a mutant or enhanced or whatever he is, landed him right in the middle of a war. Peter didn’t deserve that.”

Vivi folded her arms. “And we’d be doing him a solid by taking EDITH?”

Victoria raised her eyebrows at Quentin who tilted his head. Atleast, Tori would always be by his side.

“It’s more than the Avengers ever did for him,” Quentin answered, feeling rejuvenated.

The horrors of the previous night was shoved to the back of his mind. Marion’s accusing voice was muted.

Quentin rubbed his hands over his face, as though wiping away the night’s events.

“We know the real cost of EDITH,” he said walking towards them. “We know what’s at stake here. Stark had never known the gritty groundwork of reality when it comes to any Avenger level threat. We’re here, and we’re far more equipped with everything needed to run the best global defence system to keep the peace. The lack of abilities on our part shouldn’t stop our potential.”

“Peter Parker is a good kid!” Quentin threw a hand to point at the screen. “He would have become truly great if Stark hadn’t grabbed at his enhancement and steered his whole life away from track. Now, Pete’s on his way to be stuck in Stark’s shadow for the rest of his life. If we can use EDITH to save the world, then our bonus is that one kid can go back to school and keep his mind on regular teen life.

“I’m not saying that’s the goal,” he shrugged. “It’s something we’ll achieve while EDITH is in use by the right people.”

The others looked less nervous. Vivi and Dennis grinned in excitement.

Will cleared his throat, forehead wrinkled with doubt. “What about… How are we supposed to trick an enhanced kid who’s been in Avenger level events? He knows how to fight, he’ll know how to approach any kind of attack we can fabricate.”

Janice nodded. “Then we can’t just treat him like a harmless child. He has enough loyalty to Stark, we should see him as a potential threat, just like anyone who could jeopardize the operation.”

“So, we’re…” Cole asked slowly, “going against Spider-Man? Does that make us the villains?”

“Huh?” Frank scoffed. “This morning I woke up, ready to start the airplane designs. And now, I’m a super villain.”

Victoria moaned. “Oh jeez. We’re just doing what nobody’s thought of before. We’re going up against the Avengers and all the flaws they stand for.”

“The Avengers aren’t heroes,” Quentin reminded them. “I’m not saying, we are. But if we get EDITH, we can do far better things. It just makes us more equipped to do the right thing.”

Gutes frowned. “So… we’re the heroes?”

“Can we stop talking about heroes and villains?!” Tess groaned. “Just… we have an end goal in mind. Let’s get to that. Parker can be seen as an obstacle, but not a full fledged danger. Not if we plan this well.”

Quentin grinned. His face felt off and made his skin ache from being stretched. Like he hadn’t ever smiled before.

“Then we revise the plan. Let’s change the situation, bring in a heavy duty threat, raise the stakes, let’s…”

He looked back at the screen. The video was still playing. May Parker had come in and managed to get her nephew to sit up in bed and eat a granola bar.

“Let’s bring in a hero,” Quentin said, unwilling to blink. Parker was looking up at his aunt with a desperate expression, hanging on to every word she was saying to him. The CCTV the team had planted outside the apartment didn’t record audio, so Quentin could only guess her words.

Whatever she was telling him, Parker took it at face value and leaned into her for comfort.

That’s what he’s relying on. Something Stark would never have given him. Another thing the Avengers had clearly failed at.

A reliable mentor.

“Let’s bring in a hero,” Quentin repeated. “Someone who makes it clear that they know what they’re doing. Someone who can take up the mantle of Iron Man with far more finesse than a hastily chosen heir.”

He looked back at them, eyes gleaming. “Frank, you said that you’re working on the airline designs?”

“Yeah… for funds. I can sell a full blueprint and all the rights to it for a good amount,” Frank muttered.

“Good, keep working on that. We already sold the automobile design drafts and got 10 million. Our total bank records are… Dana?”

“We have close to 17 million dollars,” Dana said. A few stared at him, jaws open.

“We need more,” Gutes said.

“Way more,” Will agreed. “We can start manufacturing more drones, I have the plans drawn up.”

Tess chimed in, “We need to put in an order for better systems that can handle more data processing, especially for the rendering. If we’re going to create an actual monster, that’s going to take a while.”

“We need concept art for that,” Quentin added. “Vivi and Dennis can start from there. Take references, but not very obvious ones. Something basic can make the whole process more effective.”

Victoria chuckled. “If we’re making a hero, we’ll need a back-story.”

“Oooh, I already have one,” Gutes sang in delight. “It’s pretty outrageous.”

“We’re in a world where aliens and superpowers exist. You could tell people Superman is real and we’d believe it,” Cole said.

“That’s right,” Quentin folded his arms. “All we need to do is come up with a story worthy of blockbuster movie, build the story into reality with the holo tech, and use the fabricated hero to show Peter Parker that he isn’t ready for the lead role in the Avengers. He already knows he isn’t, we just need to prove it to him.”

Dennis whooped and a few laughed.

“Back on track, then?” Vivi asked, grin in place.

Quentin locked Marion’s sharp voice away and smiled back. “Let’s get to work!”

**~~~~~**

December began with frigid wind. There was no sign of snow, but that didn’t stop Quentin from bundling up in a snowboard jacket whenever he stepped out.

The day started with favorable news. Vivi and Frank had sold two of their airline designs bringing the team’s total funds up to a very lucrative number. With the funds determining what their budget for the whole project was, Quentin knew they had a good start.

The construction on the new drones were smooth. Upto ten glossy units have been created, with full holographic capabilities. Will had suggested that if this phase of drones worked better than the first 67 units they’d taken from Stark’s warehouse, they might just do away with the old ones and continue to build more.

Quentin didn’t want to get rid of anything yet. Every bit of tech and data they had would come into use somehow. They couldn’t really afford to throw things away. The holographic tech built at Stark Industries alone cost more than 600 million dollars. Will had confirmed that the entire EDITH project had gone into the billions.

Their little team was smart but not backed by a billionaire. Quentin was still confident about their current path, so had no worries as of now.

He had his headphones in. His phone was taking audio feed from a house directly below the Parkers’ apartment. The filters blocked out any voice that did not match either the aunt or the nephew’s.

**May: School term is starting on the second of Jan. Nervous?**

Her voice was distorted since it had to go through two feet of floor.

**Peter: Um… yeah.**

Peter sounded nervous, but they knew by now that his voice just went squeaky at random times. Quentin did not miss puberty.

**Peter: But I’m meeting up with Ned and the others for hot cocoa on Saturday. Cindy and Abe’ll be in New York for the ball drop.**

There was a rough sound of a box being dragged or pulled across tiles.

**May: Wow. From AcaDec, right? Cindy and Abe are… what? 21 now?**

**Peter: Yeah. It’s so weird. Abe has a job. And Cindy too. Like, they’re living in apartments… paying taxes… I think they’re cooking their food too.**

**May: They live in DC? **

**Peter: Outskirts… I think. It was nice to talk to them.**

Quentin listened to the rest of the mundane conversation. There was nothing of value, just mentions of what to do next. The Parkers were still unpacking from their recent house shift. Carton boxes littered the house.

He walked to a cafe, ordered an espresso and sat by the corner. His laptop was soon ready, streaming data from the EDITH server room.

“Den? How’s it looking?”

Dennis sat in the server room, 10 miles away, pretending to look bored while accessing mainframe gigabytes.

“Someone’s been testing the glasses. No access has been initiated. I think SHIELD’s gotten a hold of them.”

“What’s left of SHIELD, anyway,” Quentin murmured. “When did this start?”

“Two in the morning. Vivi recorded the data till seven. Five tries happened. EDITH locked them all out.”

“Could be the Avengers,” Quentin muttered, sipping his sweet coffee. Bitter espresso was just too strong for him. “Where’s the signal coming from?”

“Somewhere in Malibu. There’s an SI office there, though. Could it be the company?”

“Could be, let’s not assume. Keep an eye on it. Let me know if anything changes.”

“Got it, Q.”

Quentin went on to call the others, checking in on everyone’s status. Things had commenced without a hitch. Gutes had fleshed out an elaborate story about ‘an inter-dimensional warrior fighting elemental monsters’. The elemental idea was good. Everyone knew about the four major elements. There was enough fiction about it. It wouldn’t be too difficult to convince people about elemental monsters. The inter-dimensional part would be harder to sell.

Janice had already started on making a _suit_. All superheroes had a suit. Something that made them stand out from the civilian and non-powered masses.

And of course, the suit would be tailored to Quentin. Who else would play the hero role?

Quentin closed the tab showcasing EDITH’s codes and opened a new one.

This window showed him a list of spies who worked freelance for good money.

If Quentin’s team were to be fooling the whole world, including the Avengers and SHIELD, they’d need someone on the inside to feed them accurate data.

The spy list was something out of a Mission Impossible movie. Many of them had scrapped histories, and Quentin was hard-pressed to find someone who would be loyal to him, albeit on cash.

A few million dollars should turn up offers. It’s not like he could put up an ad on Craigslist for this.

Putting aside a few names that looked promising, he went on to his next task. Background research on all friends of the Parkers.

May and Peter had no other family members. Their small network of friends gave up no red flags. Quentin looked up the family rabbi, the regular grocery store, the new neighbors, the school friends, the office colleagues, any close companions who spent time with the Parkers since they moved to Queens, more than two decades ago.

The Leeds family was green lit. No threat there. Teachers from school might be a problem. There was a Monica Warren who had an odd background, many gaps in her past. She hadn’t been Dusted, but she retired a year after the first Snap.

The principal, James Morita, had some influence in the army and the government. The man was a descendant of one of the soldiers of the Howling Commandos, the unit led by Captain America. Small World.

He didn’t appear to be a threat. Still, Quentin put him on the watch list.

The third was Roger Harrington. He was a close friend of Bruce Banner. As in, The Hulk.

A really small world.

Quentin started to hum the song in his head as he looked up Harrington’s life and checked the wife that ran away with a boyfriend during the chaos of the first Snap. Rough life.

The students of Midtown Science were a bland bunch, but Edward “Ned” Leeds was interesting enough. He knew about Peter being Spider-Man, which made any of their conversations valuable. Tess had a direct line to their phones, making sure to record any call they had. It didn’t help much, especially since Peter refused to talk about anything to do with being a superhero. They stuck to pc games, fandom talk, and school.

In their year, Michelle Jones and Eugene Thompson were two others who were tracked. Jones had a mostly apathetic relationship with her family. Her parents had survived the Dusting and had (as much as Quentin hated to say) seemingly moved on without her.

Thompson had a similar life. His parents were distant too. His father was away on trips quite often, not always for work. The mother didn’t even seem concerned about the signs of affairs, preferring to stay in her lab and office. Her workaholic tendencies made sure their son barely ever saw them.

These four were part of the Academic Decathlon before the Snap. They were the only ones from the team to have Dusted. While Peter and Ned had gotten closer, Jones and Thompson had tried to go back to fill the roles they’d performed before.

Although, since the group would be meeting the older members, that would be an interesting day.

May Parker worked at a branch of FEAST, an organisation that helped people who were displaced by the Snap. She made very close friends with a few others there, sharing stories about experiences of living through the Dusting, and moments of coming back. Dana was in charge of gaining any info from that aspect of the Parkers’ life.

Quentin finished his espresso and rubbed his eyes. It was going to be a long day. They had a lot to plan -

His phone rang.

He frowned down at the caller ID before feeling cold all over, despite the warm room of the cafe.

**Taylor calling**

Quentin steadied himself and answered the call.

“Hello?”

“Hello. Quentin? Hey, how’s it going?” Taylor sounded nervous.

“It’s going good. Yeah, I’m on my way to work... what’s up?”

“Oh, nothing... except, random question, have you heard from Marion?”

Quentin was expecting this. But it didn’t lessen the gut punch.

“Not really. At least, not since the dinner a few weeks ago. Why?”

“Oh. Nothing, it’s just... I haven’t seen her for a while. I was with my Aunt Gini for a while. I’m going to move to Connecticut, it’s better for her. I just got back... Marion’s not home, though.”

“She’s probably at work.”

“I tried calling. I was supposed to let her know that I’d be moving out. But the house is locked and Marion’s not picking up her cell.”

Taylor’s voice cracked at the end and Quentin was forcibly reminded of the way Peter talked. His nerves were shot.

“It’s in the middle of the week, Tay. I bet she’s busy, she’ll call back during her break.”

“I’ve been trying to call her for two days. I asked the neighbor, they didn’t see her come back home last night. Or the previous night. Actually, the whole week!”

_Okay, breathe. You can do this._

_You can lie to him._

_If you can kill Marion, you can lie to Taylor._

_I didn’t mean to kill her._

_Collateral damage._

Quentin closed his laptop and looked around the cafe. “Is she staying somewhere else then?”

“I don’t know... I mean, Marion and I sort of fought before I left... I just got upset, we both were. It’s not like I was asking her to leave NY too, I just...” he sighed. “I dunno. I thought it’d be better if I moved out. But now, I can’t find her.”

“I didn’t know you fought,” Quentin tried to sound sympathetic, but his mind was already racing. If the cops got wind of a missing woman they’d pin down on the boyfriend first, right?

“It’s wasn’t a fight. We just argued. God, I hated it. I just wished we could go back to the way it was before.”

Quentin clenched his fist. “We can’t go back, Tay. Nobody can. All we can do is try to fix things and move on.”

Taylor sighed, defeated. “Yeah, will you call me if you hear from her?”

“Sure. Don’t worry, I bet she’s just busy with stuff.”

The call ended and Quentin tried to swallow down a lump in his throat. Good talk. Clearly, no one had seen Marion leave that night for his apartment.

He didn’t want to think about it, so he made his way back to their base. The team was busy working on real time interaction with their holo tech.

Today was the day the team would be dropping off the map. With Taylor moving to Connecticut, there’d be no one else who was aware of them. Quentin had worked on cutting ties with old partners and the like, working on setting up trails for hacks to pick up. Credit cards were cut, paper forms were reworked, online verifications were removed, and Quentin was separated from his social identity.

They wouldn’t remove him completely. Gutes’ story of an ‘interdimensional warrior, Quentin Beck’ would work if there was subtle evidence that there were two versions of Beck in the world.

The main plot point would be the setting. Janice and Tess had seen that there were too many variables if they brought an enemy to Peter Parker in Queens. He had too much of a support system on his home turf. No, they had to bring him out of his comfort zone, bring him to a new place, preferably without any guardians or Avengers. Without him having to have his guard up the whole time.

Tori had suggested a getaway vacation. Will had objected. No seventeen-year-old, would understand the treasure of a ‘getaway vacay’. Parker wasn’t a cubicle worker, he was a high school teenager.

They shifted the plan to a school trip. More importantly, a Euro trip.

If that didn’t excite teenagers, nothing would.

“That’s good!” Gutes praised, tapping his pen on a notepad. “Euro trip is excellent. We have our location for our water monster.”

“Hydro-Man,” Cole insisted. He was very particular about giving everything names.

“Lemme guess, Venice!” Frank said, rolling his eyes. “That’s too predictable!”

“Oh, come on! City on water, water monster!”

“Venice is a good tourist spot,” Vivi added. “We can have Peter’s class visit the place and then let the monster strike.”

Quentin frowned, bringing up a map of Venice on his laptop. “Can he swing through the buildings there?”

“They’re not the same as good ole NY, but they’ll do,” Tori nodded. “Either way, he’ll be on unknown territory. Spider-Man’s more careful about collateral damage. He’ll have to juggle between fighting the monster and saving the people.”

Quentin focused on the screen, clenching his jaw. “Okay, water monster, twenty feet tall. Webs are not gonna work. But even so, we need to program the drones to avoid becoming web shooter targets.”

“Yeah, well, he’s not an idiot. He’s not going to shoot webs at water!”

Vivi patted Dennis’s shoulder. “We’re covering all loose ends. It’s fine.”

Gutes noted everything down. “Okay, to recap. Air monster in London, fire monster in Prague, and water monster in Venice.”

Cole sighed.

“Wait, wait,” Janice looked over Quentin’s shoulder at the world map. “We can’t just have everything in Europe, that’d be too suspicious.”

Tess shrugged, “We haven’t decided for Earth monster, yet. We’ll put that elsewhere.”

“What?” Will asked, looking up from the drone unit he was tinkering with. “Do you want Peter to not face one of the monsters? You can’t have a Euro trip extending out to other continents.”

“That’s smarter,” Desiree piped up. “It’s too much of a coincidence to have one hero face up against all four elementals. Look, we’re already planning on SHIELD’s interference, we can add one of the monsters for them to deal with. That way, they’ll see how big of a threat it is.”

“Then, won’t they just call a more experienced Avenger?”

Quentin suddenly smiled, “Not if they’re on a time crunch.”

He shifted the laptop around to let it face the others. “Desiree’s got a point. We can have SHIELD see the devastation of one of the monsters. Then they can actually go up against another one. So, the first two fights won’t have to be in Europe.”

He tapped at the screen to zoom in on Italy. “Then, by the time we get Parker in Venice, we can be ready with the water monster. That’s where he and our hero will interact for the first time. Once SHIELD realises that Parker’s the only other hero at their disposal, we’ll have the next team up in Prague. Gutes, you’ve put more power for the fire monster, right?”

“Yup. Fire can burn a lot of things.”

“Cool,” he moved the map to show the Czech Republic. “We strike Prague with fire and make it seem like it ends there.”

Tess grunted. “You want a fifth attack?”

“A surprise attack, you know?” Quentin shrugged, moving his hands around. “It happens all the time, you have a fight, you have a fake out, and then the final punch. We can have a mega monster attack... here.”

He tapped on the edge of the screen and the map shifted to show London.

Vivi frowned. “How much of a mega attack?”

Quentin let himself smile. He lived for moments like these. “An Avenger level threat.”

Cole tilted his head at the screen. Dennis whistled.

Janice raised an eyebrow. “This is great and all... but how’s EDITH’s stealth tracking sequence?”

“Top of the line,” Dana replied. “We need to make sure EDITH shouldn’t be able to catch the holograms.”

“We can fly under the radar, we’ve done it before,” Quentin insisted. “We just need to make sure that we have the glasses and the authority by the time we reach London. We can use the EDITH drones to stage the final attack.”

The others looked at each other, murmuring to themselves. Quentin looked back at the screen.

They could do this. They had the patience and the motivation. This is possible.

“Q?” Vivi called, slightly hesitant. “I’m for this plan, I really am. All the attacks, tricking everyone... that’ll work. But what about SHIELD?”

Quentin raised his head. “We’re employing a spy inside their ranks. For a good amount, we can get the necessary details –”

“No, I meant... doesn’t Nick Fury lead SHIELD?”

“... yes.”

“So... if you’re going as the hero who’s fighting these monsters, then you’ll have to face Fury.”

“Yes.”

“You’d have to look right into his eyes... well, eye, and lie.”

The thought was daunting. Quentin had heard horror stories surrounding Fury.

He shrugged. “Yup.”

Tori snorted. Will sighed.

“We’re going to fool the entire planet, Vivi,” Quentin said, gently. “Fury is a serious threat... in fact, we’re going to have to deal with him if it gets too out of hand.”

The room suddenly went silent.

“Deal with him?” Tess’s voice was sharp.

“You mean kill him?” Dennis asked in a whisper. “Like... that’s what you meant, right? ‘Deal with him’ is prime villain talk for ending someone.”

Quentin groaned, “Enough with the villain stuff –”

“Are you really planning on killing somebody?!” Janice asked, eyes wide.

“This is Fury, we’re talking about – ”

“Fury is a person, Quentin,” Tess argued. “We can’t just... it’s one thing to build holo tech monsters to scare people, it’s another to actively target someone.”

Quentin slapped the laptop shut. He didn’t mean to do it in a rush, but the sound made a few of them flinch.

“Sorry, sorry,” he muttered. “Okay, I’m going to level with you. Fury started the Avenger Initiative. He got a lot of flack for it, but after the 2012 Incident, after New York... it got pushed through and approved. See, he knew that the world needs heroes. It just didn’t matter to him whether they were friends who’d watch each others backs. What mattered was that they needed to get the job done. And then Sokovia happened, and the fight in Leipzig.”

Tori ran a hand through her hair. “Fury understands how people work. That’s a major problem. If we give him too much time, he’ll figure it out. And there are smart people in SHIELD. If they get the slightest wind of what we’re doing here –”

“So, we have to kill them all?”

“Tess,” Gutes said, “You know what we’re doing is illegal, right? There’s no written law saying that you can’t engineer holo monsters to attack people. Everything we’re doing is illegal. And we can’t let anyone find out.”

Tess sat up, grumpy. “The law says we can’t attack people. Pretty sure holo monsters go unsaid.”

Frank swallowed. “So... we’re killing Fury?”

Quentin blinked at him. “It’s not going to be an execution... it’ll be like a stray attack from the monster. Whether it happens in Prague or London is something we’ll have to define.”

“He needs to be aware that Peter’s transferred the glasses to you,” Dana said. “If he’s sure about that, the others will follow him.”

They looked at each other, nodding and unsmiling. Tess was quiet, arms folded, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes. Quentin knew he’d have to keep a close eye on her.

Planning to kill someone was not easy. It was probably even worse than accidentally shooting a friend in the stomach.

_Too soon._

_You did shoot her._

_ Collateral damage. Like Nick Fury._

**~~~~~**

Quentin and Dana isolated one man out of the list of candidates to act as their spy.

Surat Denzel was the best in the business. Quentin swallowed down the potential stab of fear and phoned the man. Denzel was a man of few words and no novice to the field of espionage. After wiring an advance to him, Quentin added his number to a burner phone they’d acquired.

Within a couple of months, Denzel was recruited in the Europe division of SHIELD intelligence under the moniker of Dimitri Smerdyakov. Great.

Over those two months, the group created the first fight. Janice had built a suit which was a radioactive combination of Iron Man and Thor. Quentin had to bear the muffled giggles from some of his teammates as he slipped on the under-suit first and then the flamboyant metal plates, and then the ridiculous cape.

“A cape? Seriously, Jan?”

“What, come on! It works! It’s red, like Thor’s!”

“You and Will already coded the suit to have green magic and smoke. A red cape will just turn me into a Christmas tree!”

“Yeah,” Cole muttered, elbowing Desiree who’s shoulders were shaking. “He does look like a Christmas tree. And that’s without the bowl.”

Quentin stared. “What bowl?”

Janice sighed. “Okay, you know how one of the hardest parts to render is the face?”

“Jan...”

“Vivi and I agreed that we needed a mask for you.”

“Janice...”

“Don’t rope me into this!” Vivi squealed.

Janice ducked down and brought out a glass bowl, large enough to fit in a small school of fish.

Or somebody’s head.

“Is that a fishbowl?” Quentin asked, completely dumbfounded.

“Technically, you won’t be wearing it in public, but we need your motion capturing for the effects, not to mention we can put up information on the glass like a read out –”

“You’re making me wear a fishbowl.”

Cole, Desiree, and Dennis howled, laughing so hard they began to cry. Vivi buried her face in her hands. Tess and Tori were smirking. Will rolled his eyes and Gutes gave a thumbs up for Janice. Dana and Janice were the only ones with straight faces.

Janice lifted the bowl. Quentin saw that it was more of an old fashioned diver’s helmet than an actual fishbowl, but that wasn’t the point.

“We can have an actual mask, Vivi,” Quentin protested, face turning red. “I look ridiculous as it is!”

“We tried it!” Vivi groaned. “A mask would have to fit the exact lines of your face, factoring in the cheek bone structure. We can’t have a metal mask, that’s Iron Man trademarked. This is still a unique look. We need something to act as your heads-up display and something that shows you were part of a faceless armada from another dimension.”

“So you went straight to a fishbowl?”

“It’s either this or a paper bag, Q. Pick.”

After a lot of fittings, they finally found the perfect look. Quentin was still sour about the fishbowl, but the final rendering onscreen was actually great. The distinct lights on the metal plates made it seem a little more than earthly, the freshly pressed red cape was grand, and the chainmail under-suit was sturdy. The suit was ready and it looked fancy and hard worn.

He hated wearing it though. It was heavy and bulky. He couldn’t wait to finish filming the scenes necessary to look like he was flying through the air, shooting freakin’ lasers at an elemental monster. It looked amazing, but the production process was tedious and tiring.

Seriously, dangling from wires twenty feet off the ground was not the ideal way to spend a Saturday morning.

Quentin scratched at his neck. The metal plates were rubbing against the skin there. The harness under his suit was tight and were sure to leave bruises no matter the padding beneath. Will and Vivi were busy with screen vectors, building the mocap suit he’d need for future scenes.

If he didn’t think about the dizzying height, hanging about the room was rather fun. Quentin imagined smoke billowing from his magical runes, light spilling out of his skin as he hovered in the sky. It was ethereal.

Most of the team was busy with their designated duties. Quentin wondered if he could catch some Zs.

“Definitely odd,” Desiree was saying. He opened his eyes and looked over to the small bunch of them, crowded around Cole’s system.

Cole pointed out something to them. Dennis shrugged, Desiree mumbled something else. They were frowning at the screen.

Quentin’s nerves were wrung tight and he called out, “Everything okay?”

“Huh?” Cole looked up, eyes snapping to see Quentin staring down at them from the middle of the room.

“Yeah, yeah... It’s probably nothing.”

“What’s nothing?”

Desiree shoved Cole’s shoulder. “It’s... well, Peter’s gone off his schedule.”

Quentin frowned. “As in... his patrol?”

“No, no. He was actually late for his patrol. No, it’s something Cole’s been noticing. Tell him!”

Cole sighed. “Peter’s supposed to start patrol after school, right? Well, since last week, he’s been dipping down to the public library. His phone also has new field searches.”

Quentin’s heart was thudding loud. “Like what?”

“Um... Stuff like cold cases. He’s been researching on weird crime cases from decades ago. I don’t know what it’s got to do with Spider-Man. He’s also checked out three books from the library about FBI cover ups.”

“He’s gonna get flagged by _them_,” Dennis mumbled, emphasizing the last word.

Quentin squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “He’s been acting oddly for a week? Was it some outside influence? Did anyone from SHIELD contact him?”

Cole shook his head. “No. I’m checking up on his aunt, she’s still clean. They still have the fund open, but they haven’t used much of it, other than the down payment for the apartment and grocery and furniture.”

“Something must have changed,” Quentin said to himself. “Vivi!”

Vivi looked up from her tab. She’d been inspecting one of the drones. “Yeah!”

“Can you send me the list of powers SHIELD has on Spider-Man?”

“Yup. I have it in the folder... the one our friend sent, right?”

“The latest,” he nodded, pulling out his cell from one of the suit’s hidden pockets. Denzel, or rather, Dimitri had been sending covert updates on any intel that SHIELD had regarding Spider-Man, Iron-Man, EDITH, and related topics. The EDITH glasses were indeed with Fury, under vigilant watch.

Dimitri’s post was invaluable. SHIELD had info on many of the heroes who’d fought in the Battle of Earth.

Quentin scrolled down the list of abilities SHIELD had observed on Spider-Man. Peter had the regular stuff, super-strength, durability, flexibility, enhanced senses including a heightened sixth sense...

Huh, may be not all that regular.

The bullet point about the sixth sense was worrying. Quentin had observed hundreds of hours of Spider-Man swinging through the city, fighting small time crooks and thugs. The recent ones were only of him patrolling in the Iron Spider suit. Quentin had even seen four golden pincers emerge from the back of the suit, like four extra legs.

He’d assumed the ability to sense danger from any direction was part of the suit. The nanotech was bleeding edge armor, a similar version of the Black Panther suit, except, it lacked in Vibranium.

If Peter could sense danger lurking around the corner, could he feel them spying on him? Quentin’s team had eyes on the Parkers 24/7, whether it was cameras or literally sitting in the same restaurant every time he and his aunt went out for dinner after their dinner had burnt up.

What could Peter want with unsolved cases of the past? Could he tell he was being followed?

In the following weeks, Quentin’s fears were alleviated.

They’d just finished building the suit to start work on the second battle with the earth monster when Vivi called everyone to Cole’s station, excited.

Quentin had to wrestle out of the metal plate layer of his stupid suit. It was an uncomfortable task to jog across the length of the room in the knock off chainmail under-suit, but he managed.

Tess was looking at Cole’s computer screen. She suddenly guffawed, throwing her head back. Janice and Dana grinned at whatever was showing up.

“Alright, what’s so funny?” Quentin asked, curious at the light hearted atmosphere.

Cole sat back and pointed at the screen without comment.

It was a CCTV capture of Peter waiting with his friends at a subway stop. The tracks were empty with the train yet to arrive.

“Replay!” Dennis pestered Cole, who tapped a key. The video shuffled in reverse and began playing with sound.

Peter stood on the platform, hands shoved into his pockets, face turned down to stare at the dirty tracks. Ned Leeds stood beside him, looking at his phone. Michelle Jones stood on his other side, fiddling with a strap of her bag.

**Jones: ... taking down the graffiti on 107th street. It’s not even a private owned company. **

**Parker: That’s rough. You said the artist filled out the right forms, so they can’t get sued. **

**Jones: They shouldn’t. Some idiot’s still trying to take them to court. It’s stupid. **

**Leeds: Is it the same idiot who kept calling the cops when a black guy walked past her? **

**Jones: I wouldn’t be surprised. There are people who look and don’t see. **

**Parker: I heard that there’s gonna be a protest outside City Hall. **

**Jones: It’s supposed to be a protest. But if this idiot shows up, it’ll turn into a riot. **

**Parker: Are you still going? **

Quentin stared. Peter’s face was turning pink. Michelle squinted at him.

**Jones: I have to. I’m nearly done with my sign. I have to paint my nails though, that’s gonna take a while. I’m applying pan colors. **

**Parker: Wow! That’s great! Wow! You... do... should I... I mean. I... **

Peter cleared his throat three times, before he could spit out his sentence.

**Parker: Should I be there? Like, do you want me there? I can... hold up the sign if your arms get tired. **

Ned turned away, rolling his eyes. Michelle pursed her lips. Quentin let out a breath. Oh.

**Jones: Have you ever been to a protest? You’ll stand out. **

**Parker: That’s good! It’s good to stand out! Protests need people who... stand out. **

Cole began laughing. “Oh man. That’s precious.”

“Don’t make fun of him. He’s so sweet!” Vivi complained.

Tori folded her arms. “He’s only fulfilling his civic duty to impress her. That’s not sweet.”

“Are you kidding me, Tori?” Dennis said, stunned, “He’s literally Spider-Man! He goes out every night saving people. He’s gone far beyond civic duty.”

Dana stroked his chin. “Is this the same girl who’s search history was mainly about serial killers in the 20th century?”

“Yup.”

“I guess that’s why Parker’s been looking up cold cases.”

“I figured as much,” Cole answered. “He’s also watching more of Buzzfeed Unsolved now. Not to mention all the true crime shows.”

“What?” Desiree asked, surprised. “But he hates true crime!”

“True.”

“Oh-em-gee! Double sweet!”

Quentin stood up straight and let out a sigh. This was good news. Peter was just invested in Michelle. He hadn’t noticed the surveillance they’d installed over him.

They could use this.

The others were chatting about ‘shipping’ (whatever that was), when Quentin’s cell rang.

He checked the caller ID. It was an unknown number. He let it ring a few more times before deciding to take it.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Quentin?”

He felt his body want to freeze and panic at the same time.

It was Taylor calling. Damn it.

“Tay? Hello. Is this a new number?”

“Umm... no, it’s not. I’m, shit, I’m calling from a cell.”

Quentin stood still, “What?”

“I... the cops arrested me.”

His voice contained a subdued fright. Taylor sounded dreadful. Quentin steeled himself and walked away from the group.

“What – how... you’re in jail?!”

“Marion’s missing.”

That shut him up fast. Oh no.

“Oh... oh god. What d’you mean missing?”

“I mean, no one’s seen her for months! Did you know that? I called the cops days ago, they said somebody from her office filed a missing persons report on her. I have no clue what happened or where she went! And then they came and arrested me!”

There was already a report filed? Quentin swore silently, making a note to check up on it.

“Taylor, Tay, just breathe slowly. Come on, you’re panicking.”

“No shit, I’m panicking!” He yelled. “She’s just gone! All her stuff’s in the house! But they can’t find her cell or her laptop! One of the neighbors said that the last time they saw her, she was leaving in her car at like, midnight, with a bag. She left with a bag!”

Right. Her car. That Quentin drove out of the city after dumping her body...

His head was filled with annoying static noise. Marion’s eyes had still been open.

A witness saw her leave with a bag. They saw her drive away.

Quentin pushed past the noise and said, “Which precinct?”

“Huh?”

“Where are you?”

Taylor gave him the address and Quentin made up his mind. He ended the call and changed out of his under-suit as quickly as he could.

Tess and Janice saw him as he was leaving.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Tess called, catching up to him as he reached his car.

“It’s... I have to go somewhere. I’ll be back when I can. Keep working on the graphics. Tell Will to adjust the volume of the earth monster. The roaring gets to me.”

“Quentin,” Janice protested. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Hopefully.” He got into his car, grimacing. “It’s not about our thing here. I just need to do something.”

He took off, heading into the city.

The precinct towered over the other buildings in the block, very distinct. Quentin manoeuvred his car to a safe parking spot and filled in the meter. He had to portray the perfect citizen.

Taylor was sitting in a custody cell. All 6’ 3” of him was haggard and sleep deprived. He stood up when he saw Quentin rush towards him.

“Hey!” Quentin grabbed his hand. “Damn it, Taylor. Where’s your lawyer?”

He shook his head, worried. “I dunno. I asked for one ages ago. No one showed up.”

“I’ll check. What did they charge you with?”

“They said they wanted to ask me about Marion. But I kept telling them that I wouldn’t speak without a lawyer.”

“Good, that’s good. Don’t tell them till you get one, okay?”

“Yeah!”

Quentin found the officer leading the case. She was a tallish woman, out of uniform. She led him into a smaller room, away from the cells. It looked like a cozy little lounge with lumpy couches.

“Mr. Beck,” she greeted him, gruff and polite, before waving over a younger man. “We’re Detectives Snyder and Esperanza. We’ll have to ask you a few questions regarding Marion Hoset and Taylor Wittler.”

“Yes, of course,” Quentin paced his heart down.

“Ms. Hoset was reported missing on January 12th by one of her co-workers. But she was last seen during the third week of December.

Quentin stared. “You don’t know the exact date?”

Snyder frowned. “Do you?”

“What, no?! I just found out she’s missing now!”

Esperanza brought out a file for Quentin to see. It had pictures of Marion’s house.

“Her neighbor spotted her leaving around midnight in December. Marion was seen to have been carrying a bag. She drove away in her car and never came back. We searched her house, everything was in its place save for her cellphone, laptop, and wallet.”

Snyder leaned forwards. “We’ve been handling many missing cases ever since the Snap that brought everyone back. The worst cases are the ones who took too long to be reported. Marion was unlucky enough to have disappeared at peak holiday season. Many of her colleagues were under the impression that she had started her vacations early. Her boss had assumed that she was working out of their previous office building. Her ex-boyfriend comes back, several weeks later and tried to call us about this. And then he calls you here, using his single phone call privilege.”

Quentin swallowed, “You’re telling me you have no clue where she is?”

“Mr. Beck, when was the last time you saw her?”

Snyder was persistent. Her junior, Esperanza also stared at him. Quentin looked back.

If they were serious about pinning him as a suspect, they would be in the interrogation room with him presumably handcuffed.

“I had dinner with Marion and Taylor... in December, I think. But wait, Taylor said he’d called for a lawyer. Why isn’t there one yet?”

“There’s been high demand in lawyers,” Esperanza piped in. “He will have one within the next few hours.”

“It’s almost night.”

“Mr. Beck, we have assigned a public attorney to Mr. Wittler who will be here soon,” Snyder interrupted. “May we please come back to this? I need you to talk about your dinner with the couple.”

Quentin tried to not glare at her. “We had pizza at her place. Taylor was staying with her at the time. He was making arrangements to take care of his aunt who’s in Connecticut.”

Esperanza looked up a small card, “His new address is in Connecticut.”

“Yes, I think he moved there recently.”

“You think?”

“Yes. We haven’t spoken as much after that dinner.”

Snyder sat back. “Can you tell us about the relationship between Hoset and Wittler?”

He steeled himself. Okay, you can do this.

“They were together before the Snap. I mean, the Blip. He was dusted. It took her a while, but she moved on,” Quentin sighed. “He came back and things were a little rough. They broke up, I believe it was mutual.”

“But you’re not sure.”

“Again, I wasn’t in contact with them since that dinner. I know Marion isn’t in love with him anymore, but he would never pressure her into anything. Taylor is a good man. He’d never hurt her.”

“The neighbors heard them yelling.”

Quentin nearly choked. Damn, he forgot about the fight Taylor and Marion had had.

“Well, may be it wasn’t a clean break up. Taylor still loves her. And like I said, he’d never hurt her.”

Snyder and Esperanza shared a look. Quentin felt a sour note in that moment.

“Mr. Beck, we have evidence to suggest that Ms. Hoset may have run away. There were no clothes missing from her closet, but even so, she could have enough cash on her to keep her afloat. Even with a lawyer, Mr. Wittler could get booked as an abusive partner.”

“What?” Quentin was flabbergasted. “But he’s never abused her. Aren’t you listening? He was in Connecticut when she disappeared!”

“Is that what he told you?”

“...I... what?”

Esperanza said, “Wittler was in New York at the time. He was seen in multiple locations, driving around several neighborhoods and talking to different people.”

Quentin racked his brains. “He must have been house hunting. His aunt can’t stay alone, so he needed to find a place for them to live together. He searched around New York and Connecticut before settling there.”

Snyder’s lips turned down. “That’s all, Mr. Beck. Once the attorney gets here, we’ll cross-reference your story with Mr. Wittler. If it checks out, we won’t be able to hold him.”

“But... what about Marion? We don’t know where she is.”

“If she crossed state lines, we’ll have to alert PDs across territories. Jurisdiction laws are key.”

“But you will find her, right?”

Snyder gave a small look of sympathy. “As of now, it looks like she left on her own. In that case, she may be safe. But we haven’t found any major leads to the case.”

Quentin let out a breath. “Can I at least see Taylor now?”

“Don’t tell him anything of what we discussed.”

He got out and headed straight for the cells. Taylor was sharing a tiny room with three other men who kept their distance.

“Did they say anything?” Taylor asked, catching Quentin by the lapel. “Can they find her?”

“They’re still looking. Sorry, kid, you’ll have to wait for your lawyer to get here. It could take a couple of hours.”

Taylor groaned. “I don’t understand... she wouldn’t just leave, right? Without telling anyone. I mean... Why would she... she has a job and friends there... It doesn’t make sense! I tried calling, but it keeps going to voicemail! Why would she leave?”

Taylor’s breathing stuttered.

Quentin straightened his back. “Taylor, I need you to listen carefully. You’re hyperventilating.”

“I’m not –” he tried to protest, but Quentin spoke over him. “Yes, you are. You need to take a few deep breaths. Come on. Inhale.”

“I’m fine!”

“Inhale. With me. Now.”

Taylor grumbled some more, but followed the direction. Quentin took in a deep breath, trying to settle himself.

“Breathe out. Slowly.”

Taylor exhaled, letting out a _whoosh_ of air.

“Again.”

They repeated it two more times till Taylor sounded better.

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

“That’s alright. Look. Marion’s smart. If she went somewhere, she would have told someone about it.”

Taylor leaned against the bars. “But she didn’t... no one knows... why would she just leave?”

Quentin licked his dry lips. “She wouldn’t. We’ll find her. Stay put. You haven’t done anything wrong. You’ll be out in no time.”

Taylor slouched. “My aunt... can you call her up? Let her know I won’t be back for a while?”

“Sure.”

“And... can you keep calling Marion? May be she’ll pick up... I don’t know why the cops can’t track her cell.”

_Because I meddled with her signal._

“She’ll turn up.” Quentin said, “She has to.”

**~~~~~**

It took another month to finish building the monsters they needed. Once Quentin had filmed all the scenes required, he and Dana began setting up fake paper trails about his life.

Gutes had written a full script about the two earth dimensions that was necessary for the ploy. 616 and 833 were random numbers, chosen for the game.

If he was going to be portraying as Quentin Beck from Earth 833, the team needed to keep his life as a regular civilian from Earth 616, intact.

Dana was the same height as him, with nearly the same shoulders and hair. It would take prosthetics to pass for him, but they didn’t need that. They had holo tech.

“Not so much, Dana,” Quentin said. “My shoulders aren’t that slumped.”

“Well, they’re not completely straight either,” Dana argued, tilting his chin up. He stood straight and adjusted his jacket that had been outfitted with tiny sensors.

“Let’s try again,” Vivi muttered, activating the projection.

The sensors blinked on and Dana’s body was masked to showcase Quentin’s form. He rolled his shoulders and walked a few steps before spinning around.

“Neat!” Cole clapped. Dana bowed his head, keeping Quentin’s flair.

“Works. The whole operation can take months, Dana. You’ll have to stay at my place and keep the gimmick up.”

Dana nodded. Quentin stared at his own face, examining the details.

“I should grow a beard,” he mumbled.

“You did have one,” Dennis remarked. “But it’d be cool if we could have an obvious identifier between 616 and 833 versions.”

Dana took off the jacket and projection ceased. “This part’s done. What else did we have on the agenda today?”

Gutes checked his schedule. “Our new friend’ll be calling soon. I have the next payment ready. In the meantime, Midtown High’s been looking at our website for the Euro trip.”

Quentin gave him a sharp frown. “They haven’t approved it yet?”

“Tess handled the calls. She’s had to change the parameters. Morita doesn’t want it to be a general vacation –”

“So make it an educational trip.”

“Tess did that,” Gutes said, exasperated. “We put up the new info this morning. They’ll call us back soon.”

Desiree folded her arms, “What if Peter doesn’t go for it?”

“We’re making it a free tour for him,” Quentin said, waving a hand. “He’s on scholarship, he’ll get all the benefits.”

“And if he’s too depressed?”

Quentin had to hold back from snapping. “If that girl he likes goes for it, he’ll follow without a second thought.”

“That’s not how depression works, Q.”

“No, it’s how a distraction works.”

Desiree made a face, but didn’t argue.

Quentin point at Gutes’s screen. “Put that in. Add a visit to some obscure place that Jones would be interested in. Like some Jack the Ripper shrine.”

“We didn’t add London to the list of places.”

“It was an example,” Quentin sighed. “Figure it out.”

Gutes frowned. “You’re being short today.”

“I’m fine.”

“Take a breather.”

“Dude, I’m –”

“Take a walk,” Gutes insisted, not shying away.

Quentin gritted his teeth and mumbled, “Fine.”

He marched away from the others, feeling their gazes on the back of his head.

He’d been on edge for a while now. The mountain of plans they’d had to work through had a price to pay. Quentin hadn’t been getting enough sleep. Watching the Parkers all the time made him feel like there were eyes watching him from all quarters.

It was ironic that he’d gotten fired from SI for exposing how Stark had been working on complete surveillance through his drone tech. He was doing the same thing now, removing all sense of privacy from Peter and May Parker. The illusion was all that was left.

Things were slightly behind schedule, but that was fine. They’d catch up.

The cops had questioned Taylor till they’d bled him dry for answers. Marion’s case hit a dead-end. Taylor moved to Connecticut, heartbroken and worn to the bone.

Quentin had done his best to not toss all suspicion on him. It would have been easy. Taylor was the perfect scapegoat to pin the blame. Quentin’s testimony determined his fate.

In the end, the case had barely any circumstantial evidence to throw anyone in prison. They couldn’t take him to court, so Taylor was let off with a stern warning of being watched.

Quentin walked out onto the abandoned helipad and breathed in some fresh air. The wind was warming up slowly at the end of February. The rains had been swift and the air was strangely clear. There was no longer dust floating in microscopic amounts.

His cell pinged with a message and Quentin closed his eyes, bringing it out.

Dennis had sent a text regarding EDITH. Quentin checked the details.

It stated that SHIELD had stopped trying to access the satellite. Which means, Fury’s interest in Peter would reach a tipping point soon.

_See, Marion? I’ve got it all planned. Just a few more months._

_You’re going to hurt a lot of people._

_Collateral damage._

He heard her scoff.

A second device in his jacket pocket buzzed. The burner phone was ringing, which meant only one individual.

“Hello,” Quentin had to keep his conversations with Dimitri brief.

“Team’s packing up to move to the London base,” Dimitri murmured, his voice low, almost a growl.

“Is he anymore wrathful?”

“Quite. Losing a lot of enhanced contacts.”

“Hmm. Any outside reach?”

“No. Your window’s open.”

“Good. Next payment’ll be in by noon.”

Dimitri cut the call.

Quentin lowered the phone. Their window of opportunity opened too soon. There was no saying when it could close. Quentin’s team had to act fast.

Victoria should be finished building her EMP by now. Her plan to fool SHIELD’s satellites had been ambitious and brilliant. Quentin might actually kiss her if it worked on the first try.

He let out a longer sigh. It’s going to work. They’re going to get EDITH.

Screw you, Stark.

**~~~~~**

They’d begun to pack up.

Victoria’s EMP and the 209 drone units that they now commanded was shipped out to Mexico under the guise of disused iron safes. They booked enough space on two shipping freights to carry them over to a port in Boca del Rio on the Eastern coast of Mexico. The team had deemed it too risky to use flights to move the precious cargo.

Gutes, Tess, Vivi, and Dennis met up with a newer member of the team, Doug Linus, who would oversee transportation for the entire operation. They separated from the rest of the group and made their way to a small place called Ixtenco which was the site for the first and second attacks.

Quentin and Tori took a few hours to destress after the freights had set sail.

The two sat in a coffee shop, in a corner with a laptop open on the table. An oblivious passerby might assume them to be a couple watching a movie together on a cheap date.

It was a far better excuse than admitting that they were spying on a seventeen year old.

“I walked past my neighbor today,” Quentin muttered to her. “He didn’t recognize me at all.”

Tori smirked. “What? He couldn’t see those baby blues past that rugged beard?”

“No taste,” he agreed, rubbing a hand through the thick hairs that gave him a new look altogether.

They fell silent as the screen showed Peter Parker helping his aunt move a second hand couch into the living room. The pair had been arranging furniture the whole day.

“May be use less gel.”

He looked at her. “Hmm?”

Tori sipped on her latte. “The combed gel look? Doesn’t work for a hero.”

“You want me to stick to the trope of a tousled hair?” Quentin snorted. “I like to keep my do neat.”

“Yeah… well, look at little Pete.”

Quentin groaned. “I’m not taking styling tips from a kid who’s voice still breaks.”

Tori giggled. She brought the laptop closer to place it on her lap. “But look at those curls! He’s adorable!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“He gels and combs his hair down before he goes on patrol,” she pointed. “But remember when he wore the first Stark suit? No gel for that. Nano tech can get tricky if you have messy hair.”

Quentin rolled his eyes. “I’ll keep a note of that if we ever go for his suits. Besides, the first suit has a separate AI built into it. It’s coded specifically to him. That would be way harder to change.”

“Eh, forget it. We can get nano tech from other places once we have EDITH.”

Quentin grinned.

Onscreen, Peter picked up the refrigerator and placed it in the kitchen. May moved a few throw cushions and accidentally knocked over his bag. A book and a sheet of paper fell out onto the floor.

“Here we go,” Tori mumbled.

They watched as May picked up the spilled contents, her eyes drawn to the printed paper.

**May: Peter? What’s this about a trip?**

Peter’s head shot up, out of the fridge that he’d been digging into. His eyes had gone comically wide.

**Peter: Ummm…**

**May: Venice, Paris, London… When did you get this form?**

**Peter: Uh… just… it’s not important May -**

**May: It says ‘educational’. It looks compulsory.**

**Peter: It’s to another continent, May! It’s super expensive, they can’t make it compulsory.**

**May: It says for ‘Sophomores and Juniors’. You’re a Sophomore. They can’t make it involuntary based on money!**

Peter gave a shrug. Quentin and Tori took mimicking sips from their beverages. It was fun to watch the Parker household, especially when May and Peter talked about silly, mundane stuff with such ferocity. A good way to relax.

May waved the paper about, looking incensed.

**May: These are such beautiful places! You’ve never even been out of the country -**

**Peter: I’ve been far away from the country before, May.**

Tori winced. “Low blow, dude.”

May froze, blood draining from her face. Peter looked pale too.

**Peter: Sorry, sorry. I shouldn’t have said that… I didn’t mean… **

**May: It’s fine, it’s....god. No, it’s not fine. Peter, this isn’t fine.**

**Peter: May, don’t -**

**May: You don’t talk about it at all! I don’t want to make you say everything, but this isn’t good for you. Bottling it all up -**

**Peter: I’m not bottling it up! I’m not hiding anything. I just don’t want to talk about it. It was bad, it was horrible, and then it got worse. And… talking about it isn’t going to change anything.**

Quentin shook his head. The kid was a walking textbook for PTSD. He believed that by not talking about _it_ he could leave all his fear, pain, and issues in the past.

Tough luck, Petey. You’ll soon find out.

May laid the book and paper on the table and wrapped Peter in a hug.

**May: Oh, sweetheart. I didn’t mean… No, god I wish… not talking about it isn’t going to make it go away.**

**Peter: Yes it will.**

He sounded so petulant and sad. Tori cooed in sympathy and Quentin grinned at her.

**May: Baby… It’s not going to be easy. Look, a school trip. That sounds wonderful. Ned would be interested in this, right?**

**Peter: Yeah, he got excited about London. They might even get to check out Comic-Con points there, or go to Kings Cross.**

**May: You’d love that too. This is a great chance to get some space. Ever since you’ve come back, things have changed. It’s like, you’re still not home. You’re still in a far away place.**

Peter flinched at her words. May brushed some of his hair back, trying to soothe him.

**May: Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so harsh. I just wish it was easier for you. This trip could help you get your mind off of things.**

**Peter: (Sigh) Maybe. What about the cost?**

**May: I think this should come under your scholarship application. If not, we can dip into your fund -**

**Peter: Aunt May, no. We shouldn’t.**

**May: This is for you. The fund is for you. And this trip will really help. You’ll get to spend more time with your new classmates. That’ll be nice, right? And what about MJ?**

Quentin and Tori watched in delight as Peter’s face went pink.

“Oh I love it when May and Ned needle him about her. It’s so cute,” Tori whispered.

**Peter: What, no! It’s, nothing. She’s nothing!**

**May: MJ’s nothing?**

**Peter: NO! May! I mean, yeah. She thinks it’s cool. She sorta said something about Paris and the Eiffel Tower -**

**May: Ooh! You’ll be going to the Eiffel Tower? That’s a pretty romantic place, Peter.**

**Peter: Yeah, but it’s a classic trope. She doesn’t like cliches. **

**May: But she likes the tower?**

**Peter: I guess… I didn’t want to be too weird, so I didn’t ask her about it.**

**May: You’re so sweet, dear. Did you ask her out yet?**

**Peter: Uhh… no… what if she doesn’t like me like that?**

**May: You’d never know if she likes you back if you don’t ask her.**

**Peter: I can’t just ask her! That’s not how it works!**

**May: Then how does it work? What would MJ like?**

Quentin watched as Peter put on his thinking face. Tori leaned back, resting her head by Quentin’s shoulder.

**Peter: MJ would want someone who likes lot of the things she does. What she really cares about…**

**May: (nodding) Good, that’s good. You know what she likes. Have you checked it out?**

**Peter: Yeah… she likes true crime and stuff. MJ’s got a list of most interesting serial killers in America. She thinks the cold cases and supernatural legends in Europe are a treat. I guess there’s something about Paris connected to that.**

**May: Wow. You know. I bet if she saw how important you consider her interests to be, she’d see that you’re pretty awesome.**

May nudged him gently under the chin. Peter smiled, bashful and full of hope.

**Peter: You think so?**

**May: Anyone would be lucky to date you, Peter. And if MJ doesn’t like you back, then it’s her loss. It would say nothing about your own amazing self.**

**Peter: O...Okay. But I can’t just ask her out by telling her that I know what stuff she likes. It has to be a really, really solid plan. **

**May: With steps.**

**Peter: Yeah! Like… Oh, I could get her a gift! **

**May: Does she like jewellery?**

**Peter: She doesn’t wear a lot of shiny stuff. But If I get her something like a keychain connected to an unsolved case…**

**May: Crime merchandise? Really, Pete?**

**Peter: She’d like them!**

**May: You have to make it tasteful. Something with class. You can’t just get her earrings about Ted Bundy.**

Quentin scoffed. “She’d probably wear those anyway.”

Tori hushed him.

**Peter: I know what her favorite case is. May be… oh, she also like watching documentaries.**

**May: Let me guess, the gory kind?**

**Peter: Non-fiction or dystopia kind… but she likes some funny stuff too. Can I get her a drive full of documentaries?**

**May: It might be more romantic if you watch them with her. At least a couple of them. MJ sounds like someone who needs to be on her own to recharge her social battery.**

**Peter: Oh, yeah. She’s an introvert. Yeah… um, I guess if I plan it out, she might say yes.**

May gave him a soft smile. Peter blinked at her. Quentin watched the rest of the scene feeling an odd emptiness in his chest.

His own mother’s kind touch was a bare memory. It was difficult to recall if what he remembered of Henrietta Beck was from photographs or experience. There was a time when he would sing Led Zepplin with her while she drove down an empty highway. The wind in his hair, the soft music from the radio, the lyrics swirling around him… she’d laugh whenever he got the words wrong…

She had laughed a lot.

May and Peter packed his bag away and made plans to visit an Indian restaurant. They wanted to try something new.

There was a lump in Quentin’s throat.

Tori finished her latte with a satisfied sigh. “That’s way better than any movie we could’ve picked, right?”

He swallowed, closing the laptop as the Parkers left the house.

Quentin knew what it meant to be away from home while standing in the very house he was born in. That was what it had felt like when his mom passed away. The moment the scent of her perfume faded from the cushions and clothes, the moment he realised that he had to stay in that house with with his deadbeat dad without his mom as buffer… home had gone with her.

At least Peter had his aunt. Quentin was more than aware that the kid had lost a lot in his short life. But he had some good left.

What would happen if May died? Quentin could imagine Peter going over the deep end. It would be so easy. The boy was already on edge. Every night Peter went on patrol, there were reminders of Iron Man as murals, graffiti, statues, and the hundred commissions being announced all over the city, so forget the rest of the world.

It didn’t matter if Peter was going to Europe, he’d never leave Tony Stark behind. He’d never be home as long as Stark followed him all over the universe.

Them’s the breaks, kid. You’re not ready to take on Stark. Doesn’t matter how long you wait, or how much you try to distract yourself. You can escape to Paris or stay bundled up in your bed, you’ll never be home again.

Welcome to the real world.

It was only when Tori and Quentin left the coffee house when it struck him.

Peter’s awkwardness, his struggle to adapt, his passion towards things and people he cares about…

Quentin stopped walking, freezing right there on the straight. Tori went on ahead, unaware that he’d stopped.

It was hard to breathe.

Oh god.

Peter was like Taylor… and Marion rolled into one.

If Tay and Marion ever had had a kid… it would turn out to be a Peter Parker.

Quentin stared at the ground, feeling people bump into his shoulder and mutter curses at him for blocking the route. But everything was separated from his crumbling reality by a poisonous fog.

Tay and Marion would never have a kid, though. Not with her dead.

Because Quentin had killed her.

_I wouldn’t have to kill her if she’d just stayed away!_

_That’s not an excuse._

_She never understood me. She never saw how debilitating and painful it was to have to deal with Stark’s fallout. It always hurt to even think about having to work with the man._

_That’s NOT an excuse to kill her._

Quentin tried to take a calming breath.

<strike>Collateral damage.</strike>

No, he realised. Marion couldn’t be reduced to something as inconsequential as an unavoidable result.

Marion was a sacrifice.

Her death was proof that Quentin would do anything to see his dreams come true. It wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t anyone’s fault. It just had to happen. He had to do it.

If everything went the way they’d planned it, **Operation: Energize EDITH** would ensure that nobody else would need to be a sacrifice.

Tori finally realised he wasn’t following her and rushed back to where he was standing, rooted to the spot.

“Hey?” She waved an arm in front of him. “Are you okay? Q?”

“Hmm?”

“Can you talk? Shit, are you having a stroke?”

“No… no, I’m fine.” Quentin shook his hands to revitalize himself. “Just zoned out.”

Tori frowned. “Prove it. Smile for me.”

“Tori - ”

“Do it, man!”

Quentin bared his teeth.

“Raise your right arm… okay, now you’re left… now take five steps forwards like you’re walking normally.”

He performed all the actions perfectly till Victoria gave a relieved look.

“Now that I’ve made myself a spectacle, can we go?” He asked, slightly irritable.

“It’s New York, chill. No one cares,” she snorted, looping her arm around his.

Quentin tried to listen to her talk about Gutes’s report from Mexico City. But the only thoughts running in his head was that Peter was too much like Taylor and Marion.

It’s fine, he thought viciously. Marion fell out of love with Taylor anyway, it’s not like they could have worked it out later and gotten back together…

Taylor can find someone else.

If Peter can try to move on, so could Tay.

They’ll be fine.

Quentin’s fine.

**~~~~~**

The modest town of Ixtenco in Mexico was a lively little place. But most of Quentin’s team hunkered down in a blast bunker, ten feet underground, 2 miles away from the town. It was a smallish room with just enough space for them and all the tech.

The hot desert was a far call from their open and secret facility on the outskirts of New York City. It was one thing to live in a bubble and plan to attack several people for the act of staging a fight, it was a whole other thing to actually carry out the devastation.

Will sat behind the controls in the bunker, monitoring 121 drone units to begin the attack. Vivi had her tablet open, keeping a close eye on their system functions.

The drones began to send massive amounts of gust through the loose sand on the ground. The dirt began to rise and swirl, like a typhoon.

The townspeople backed away from the center as the grey smoke like visage of a netherworld being rose from the very air, the illusion seamlessly interfacing with the real effects.

If there ever was a perfect blend of VFX and Special Effects, Quentin thought, his smile growing into a large grin, it was this.

The monster, or as Cole liked to call it, Cyclone, grew to take the form of a ghastly face with a smoke filled body The wind roared and screams erupted from the ground as the disguised drones sent a barrage of dust to blow through the town like the arm of god threatening to wipe them away.

Victoria’s EMP sent enough tremors that at least one of SHIELD’s satellites must have gotten the signal.

Show time.


	6. Ruination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The smell of delicious cooking wafted from the kitchen and Quentin found a good space by a window to relax and pick up his menu.
> 
> Maria Hill joined him within minutes.
> 
> She was one of the Dusted. Quentin’s thorough research on her and Fury gave him confidence. He had lived in a world where neither she nor Fury had existed.
> 
> “May I?” she asked. He almost laughed at her politeness.
> 
> “Of course. You’re paying anyway.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many things to explain why this chapter was so late. No time to write. Had to delete many things out. Was running too long.  
And I've changed the chapter limit, yet again. Seven chapters, folks. Enjoy!

The damage was exorbitant. The air monster, Cyclone, tore apart houses and shops. Solid brick and stone crumbled, roofs blew away, telephone poles ripped out, and people were thrown about.

The team sat in their blast-resistant bunker and watched the visuals projected on their screens from the cameras in the drones. 

“Looks good,” Victoria hummed.

Tess gave a long sigh.

“I think we killed someone,” Vivi whispered. She was holding her tab close to her chest, staring at the computer screens.

Quentin shrugged. He was sure that at least ten people died. It was looking pretty tragic.

The drones were outfitted with the best weapon tech, courtesy of Stark. The sonic cannon was Quentin’s favorite. It produced high-pressure sound waves in a narrow trajectory. The effect was so intense it caused the air to ripple, basically blasting apart anything that stood in its way.

Each drone had the ability to knock the Hulk down for a few seconds. 

The blasts were aimed first at the earth, stirring up dust and damaging any structure in the vicinity. With 165 drones in perfect formation, there was enough kinetic energy to bring the real-time effects of the monster to life.

The projection was flawless. Quentin stared at the skeletal-like face of the smokey figure. The sightless eyes were horrific to anyone who’d never worked hundreds of hours constructing it.

Just as the monster was nearly done laying waste to the center of the village, the hero came into play.

Quentin was still in the bunker, wearing his soft, grey mocap suit, glass helmet switched on. The readout was in dark green letters, flashing just a few inches from his eyes. It used to leave imprints on the back of his eyelids the first few times he’d used it. Now it merely gave a slight ache in his temples.

He raised his left arm to tap on the device fixed to his suit. It was another avenue to control the drones. The small screen on his access point showed that up to 43 drones were completely free for his use. Since each drone had the capability to project any part of the simulation, Quentin activated the new schematic from his current action for his hero to enter the scene.

The suit caught his movements and projected it onto the battlefield. The prerecorded motion of the hero, flying around the Cyclone in his cape flapping behind him, was displayed seamlessly beside the monster.

Quentin didn’t give any input at the beginning. He watched as the manufactured hero took off into the sky, blasting the opponent with sick green lasers. The triangular runes hovered above his palms, energy emerging from them.

It was exhilarating to watch himself take on a larger than life creature. The fight began with the monster trying to blow Quentin out of the sky. He flew around the smokey arm and aimed a laser at its neck. To anyone watching, it seemed as though he was trying to cut off its circulation.

Quentin activated the motion capture on his suit to take over whenever he interacted with new elements, i.e., the civilians. Once, he even stopped fighting to shield civilians with metal roofs, yelling at them to run.

See? That’s a hero.

The monster got a few hits in and Quentin delivered back just as viciously. Finally, he got a laser within its torso and ‘reduced the temperature’, making blocks of smoke literally dissipate from its body.

It didn’t have to make sense, it just needed to look epic.

The 4-minute battle ended with the monster bursting into large green flakes. It took much longer in real-time than in memory. 

Finally, the form of the hero landed hard on the ground. The earth gave a crack and a rumble before turning quiet.

Quentin looked past his heads-up display and watched his teammates stare wordlessly at the screen.

“How’d you like ‘em, apples?” He grinned.

Will’s jaw had gone slack. Vivi was still blinking, but Tori managed to smirk in victory.

“That was gold,” Desiree breathed. “It was way better than the simulations. I mean… look at the village! Nearly everything’s gone!”

She was ecstatic and so did most others.

Tess looked down at one of the screens. “We got an alert about someone recording the activity. They’ve dispatched two agents…”

“SHIELD?”

“Probably. It’s not registering in the government’s logs.”

Quentin nodded. “Let’s wait till they get there. They need to see the next one.”

It took a whole hour for any relief support to appear. A few trucks drove up and a dozen soldiers got down, immediately issuing orders for people to take their most personal belongings and leave. Along with them were nearly twenty personnel dressed in masks and protective suits, the cleanup group.

Some of the crew began helping the civilians dig up debris to find precious belongings. Meanwhile, the villagers were conveying the events to the soldiers. Some looked skeptical, while a few shrugged and helped them board the truck.

**(It was twenty feet tall and broke the buildings with just one swipe!)**

**(It made the cars fly!)**

<strike> **(Can you find my baby? He isn’t here!)** </strike>

**(The wind picked up so fast we didn’t even know when the creature actually appeared.)**

<strike> **(My shop is gone! I don’t know what to do now! There’s nothing left for me!)** </strike>

**(No clue where it’s from. It was like a cyclone and it had a face!)**

<strike> **(The wall fell on her, you have to dig and find her! She’s trapped!)** </strike>

**(If it wasn’t for the flying man, we wouldn’t have survived.)**

<strike> **(I lost everything.)** </strike>

**(The hero disappeared, taking off into the sky on green smoke.)**

Quentin focused only on the good comments. It never helps to put too much attention on negativity, he’d learned that years ago.

**(I would have died if he didn’t appear. My leg got stuck under the rubble and I couldn’t move. I almost died… and then, I didn’t. Thanks to him.)**

He smiled. Yeah. Thanks to me.

Some of the trucks left the scene. Two were still parked, waiting for stragglers to pick up debris and find their precious belongings.

Another hour later, things stirred up. Across the green field outside the wasted land, a black Mercedes was seen on the sandy road, headed for the village. It was caught on one of the drone’s cameras.

“Vivi, zoom in,” Quentin instructed, eyes widening.

The image loaded on screen and everyone looked, stunned. The two people in the car weren’t faceless agents of SHIELD.

“That’s… him…” Frank gulped. “That’s actually…”

Nick Fury and Maria Hill drove up to the village. The Mercedes slowed to a stop on a dirt path, between broken buildings. The soldiers from the last truck approached them, but Hill flashed a badge and said the right words, curt and inflexible. The soldiers backed away.

“Q?” Gutes called, hesitant. “Are we bringing up the next fight?”

Quentin swallowed. He wasn’t ready to actually face Fury right now. But then again, he’d probably never be ready. None of them imagined that this was such a red flag to have the director of a nearly dead organization step out onto the field.

“This advances the timetable,” Tess pointed out. “It can actually work out for us.”

Quentin pressed his lips together. “We have our failsafe?”

Will nodded.

“Start the simulation. I’m taking over.”

Dennis flashed a thumbs up and they stepped closer to the screens as he moved away to give himself some space.

Quentin’s HUD gave the live projection of the scene. Some of the villagers and soldiers remained along with the two agents. 

“...locals say the cyclone had a face,” Fury responded to something Hill had mentioned. They were dressed in black, like tactical gear, which looked ridiculous concerning the hot climate of the region. Even so, they cut a commanding presence by simply being there.

Tori switched on her EMP and gave a short blast through the earth’s surface. It went over the land like a roar. 

“I’m going in first,” Quentin informed activating his drone control access point on his arm.

His alter ego appeared to the two agents and the rest of the audience in a pillar of smoke like he’d jumped from a high point and ended in a hero’s pose. Fury and Hill immediately had their guns aimed at him.

“Take out their car,” Quentin muttered to Vivi, before letting the hero retract his helmet and look around.

“Who are you?” He asked Fury and Hill, sounding out of breath and slightly distracted.

They just frowned at the projection.

Tori gave the EMP a little more juice just as the drones spun a rising image. The sand and dirt was being pulled into a mound, building itself up so fast it emerged from the ground right under the Mercedes.

The car was flipped back as the ground erupted. The agents immediately turned to aim their guns at the second monster projection. Sandman, as Cole called it.

The single drone that had sneaked under the car to knock it over was still functioning perfectly.

Chains appeared, old and rusted, as the figure grew. Within seconds, it towered over the wasted village and the shocked watchers. Fury and Hill began shooting at it, but the drones swerved around the bullets. Will immediately sent in new directions for the projection to show bullets bouncing off of the monster. 

Sandman gave a roar, facing the hero. Quentin gave a tired sigh and said, “You don’t want any part of this.” 

He threw his arms out to release new runes and two blasts of lasers right at its face. The energy of it smacked Sandman making part of its head crumble off and fall. 

“Get out and get them away!” Quentin yelled at Fury and Hill, before flying up to meet the monster. He managed to grab at one of the chains.

“Keep me posted on their location,” he told Vivi, concentrating on the hero’s movements.

Fury and Hill backed away to call the cleanup crew back to the last remaining truck. Some of the soldiers fired at the monster as well, but the drones deflected everything away.

The simulation began to unfold as scripted. Quentin stepped back to let it work the way he’d seen countless times. The hero grabbed the chain to place runes on them. The iron links heated up and Sandman roared in anger, trying to grab him. The hero dodged one hand but nearly got clipped by the other. He almost fell, but regained his balance and shot off into the air, flying behind the monster to bring another of its chains up to wrap around its neck.

As soon as he activated the runes, the iron began to heat up, burning through the sand and mud. The monstrous form deteriorated piece by piece, first one limb breaking into dust, then another and another. Then, the hero delivered the final blow right to its chest.

Like before, the pressure of his radioactive magic turned the consistency of the monster topsy-turvy and unable to sustain itself. The whole creature collapsed back into the earth with a groan, its body turning back to sand and dust.

Silence took over the playing field. Quentin let his projection stumble a bit around the fractured buildings before leaning against a wall.

“And cut,” Gutes muttered.

“We’re still rolling,” Janice said, smacking his arm.

The unaware watchers moved out of their hiding places. Fury and Hill surveyed the result of the mayhem they had witnessed.

The hero rotated his wrist in an act of assessing damage. He looked over at them.

“Should have left,” he said, panting. “That could have ended a lot worse. I got lucky.”

“Is that so?” Fury replied, unblinking.

Quentin gave a confused smile, letting the projection mimic him. “You… don’t look so surprised to see a monster just climb out and attack people.”

“I’ve seen weirder and worse.”

The hero nodded slowly, “So have I.”

Hill narrowed her eyes but didn’t say anything. If the rumors were true, Maria Hill was next in line to the director’s seat and the fact that they were working together even now made waves.

Quentin gave a cough, standing up straight. “Nice chat. Bye.”

“Who are you?” Hill asked, her tone was severe.

“Doesn’t really matter. I’ve got stuff to do.”

“Like what?”

Quentin gave a shrug. “Need to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself.”

“Time-traveler?” Fury asked. He sounded so straight-laced that Quentin choked.

“Time-traveler? You have those here?”

Hill blinked. “Alien?”

“Wha - no. Well… I’m not from  _ this _ Earth, so I guess…” Quentin let the thought simmer before shaking his head. “I can’t waste time, I have to go.”

“Those monsters aren’t going to come back, right?” Hill asked, urgently.

“No, no. I took care of them. Look, I need to find two more just like them and then I’ll be gone.” He turned to stagger out into the sun.

“We can help you.”

Fury was dead serious, already extending an olive branch. Hook, line.

Quentin squinted. “Oh yeah? Can you detect elemental motions through the earth, based on its radioactive signature?”

Fury and Hill shared a look.

“Didn’t think so.” Quentin turned to leave again but Hill stopped him.

“Our satellites picked up tremors in this region right before the cyclone was formed.” She frowned. “The cyclone was another ‘monster’, right?”

Quentin gave her a stunned look. “You actually caught it? How, how? It isn’t like an earthquake tremor –”

“We have very advanced tech for preternatural and abnormal activity,” she deadpanned.

“Oh, wow… um…”

“Do  _ you  _ have equipment to detect elemental motions through the earth, based on its radioactive signature?” Fury asked, not even stuttering.

The projection gave an embarrassed look. “Not exactly…”

“Then how did you know this would hit here?”

The hero finally faced them. “Because this was where Cyclone and Sandman attacked the last time!”

They stared at him, waiting for an explanation. Quentin gave a long sigh and began his scripted monologue on the elementals from another dimension, attacking certain planets, of which Earth was a favorable one to destroy. Terms like ‘inter-planetary defense battalions’, ‘elemental monsters’, and ‘accidental inter-dimensional transportation’ were thrown about.

“I’m sorry,” Hill interrupted. “Did you say, inter- _ dimensional _ transportation?”

“ _ Accidental _ inter-dimensional transportation,” Quentin added, giving the words a frustrated inflection. “That first word is important, because if this really is 2024, then I have no means to go back to my base!”

“Back to your Earth?” Fury clarified.

Quentin let his jaw harden, body locking down. He glowered at Fury. “I wish. There is no Earth to go back to.”

“...what?”

“The reason why I need to find the other Elementals,” he said, waving an arm about angrily, “Is because they could literally destroy the planet within hours! Air and Earth already showed up here, but I cut them down before they had time to grow. See, if you lose a fight with them, they just get stronger.” Quentin screwed his eyes shut like he was repressing a bad memory.

He continued, “The more time they reside on a planet, the more powerful they become. They have flooded and suffocated entire systems before. Fire burned  _ my  _ Earth because we were too late to stop it! If you help me detect the tremors, then I can take them down by myself! I can do that! But once they cross a certain point, they can leech power from the elements all around us! Your Earth will be gone in a matter of days if we miss our deadline.”

Fury clenched his fist around his gun. “Where’s the next attack?”

Quentin didn’t move. “You’re helping me?”

“This is for everyone. And you know most about these monsters. We can have a team assembled.”

“I’ve worked with teams before and they were disasters,” Quentin snapped. “Everyone had their own backstories and traumas, we just couldn’t work together! No offense, random people with guns. But these monsters are appearing here for the first time. I took down two in a single day. I can handle the rest. I just need to know when they’re going to strike.”

Fury and Hill shared another look. It was almost telepathic. 

Quentin’s heart was thundering in his chest. The scales were in his favor, it just had to keep tipping the right way. Come on, come on.

“You got a place to stay?” Fury asked, suddenly.

“... huh?”

“Do you have a place to stay?”

“Um… no, I didn’t have my wallet or any papers when I fell through the dimensional portal.”

Hill finally pocketed her gun. “You tell us where the next attack will be. We’ll get you a place to stay close by. When our satellites pick up the tremors, we’ll let you know.”

Quentin leaned back, eyeing them suspiciously. “What’s the catch?”

Fury stared back. “You tell us everything about your accidental inter-dimensional transportation.”

He let his shoulders slump. “That’s it? Sure. Venice and Morocco. Or Prague. One of the two. We got a lot activity once under Morocco, but it was Venice before Prague on my Earth, so keep a lookout for that.”

Quentin activated his helmet. “And I’ll get there myself.”

The projection took off into the sky, leaving behind a trail of green smoke. 

Quentin blinked as the image retreated from his helmet. He looked at the others in the bunker.

Gutes was grinning. Victoria winked at him. Everyone else was simply impressed.

“That definitely got their interest,” Dennis said. Quentin took off the helmet and looked at the array of screens in front of Will. The others leaned in and watched Fury and Hill’s conversation from the remaining drones that lingered there. 

They were walking back to where the truck was waiting for them.

**Hill: ... think this is the first time we actually have a problem in a small enough stage, before it develops into a big one.**

**Fury: Then we need to nip this in the bud. We need to call people.**

**Hill: You heard him, he didn’t want a team.**

**Fury: Yeah, well, I’d like to have ** ** _this _ ** **planet in one piece. How many are available?**

**Hill: After Thanos? We have eyes on very few people. If we’re searching for someone enhanced and magical… Wanda and Strange would be the best fit.**

**Fury: Are they even in the same dimension?**

**Hill: Probably not… but they could help this new guy get back to wherever he’s from.**

**Fury: Send a message out. I’m gonna call our young friend.**

**Hill (annoyed): You’re roping that boy into this?**

**Fury: I like Wilson and Barnes, but he’s stronger than both of them. And Stark must have seen something in him to leave him a whole damn legacy.**

Quentin’s heart was beating faster now. They were talking about Peter Parker.

**Hill: I’ll make the calls. But I’m not contacting that boy.**

**Fury (irritated): I know. I said I would.**

Tess rolled her eyes. “They’re arguing like a married couple.”

Janice tilted his head back, “Dimitri said many of the heroes were off-grid, right?”

“That’s what he said,” Frank confirmed. “The window’s open.”

Quentin rubbed the back of his neck, “Where’s Parker at?”

Dennis hunched. “His passport’s not ready yet.”

“Are you kidding me?!” Quentin groaned. “The trip’s in a week!”

“It’s plenty of time,” Tori said, staring him down. “It’ll be in the post-office by tomorrow. Doug’s keeping an eye on it.”

“Although, with our luck, he’ll get it at the last moment,” Gutes muttered and everyone whined.

“Alright, alright!” Quentin called for attention. “Pack up! Will, make a note of all the drones, see which ones need repairs. Everyone knows what to do, let’s be ready to leave here within the hour!”

**~~~~~**

Cole was stationed in Queens, keeping an eye on Peter and his allies. Dana was smart enough to switch between impersonating Quentin and returning to his own identity at different times of the day, to show that there were two people living in the apartment. 

Doug was already in Venice ready to show projections of their hero landing in a barely crowded place before disappearing. (SHIELD had to be fed as much as they could; somebody would have recorded him and post it online). Dimitri was silent and swift when it came to gathering the required information from SHIELD. The team was efficient in their roles managing scope out every venue for potential enemies.

And Quentin was careful to keep tabs on everyone while everyone kept tabs on their targets.

It was a scramble for them to pack up and head to Venice. Their flight was quick, having managed to hire a private jet to transport their drones, EMP, and themselves to Europe. The moment they landed, Quentin had to gear up in his costume and meet up with Fury and Hill. The jet-lag sold the exhausted visage of a hero.

Quentin approached them, eating a cupcake he’d purchased from a small bakery.

Fury eyed the pastry with ill-placed disdain. “I was under the impression you didn’t have cash.”

Quentin swallowed a large bite, skin cold with sweat. Now that he was face to face with the Director of SHIELD, he felt true fear.

“I didn’t. The chef was nice enough to let me sample this, though. He kept calling me ‘Thot’.”

Fury didn’t even blink. “Hmm.”

“I’m not a thot,” Quentin felt the need to specify.

Hill assigned an agent to assist him while he stayed at a six-star stateroom. The Excelsior was a grand hotel located in Venice, just a few miles down from the airport.

How on earth they managed to secure a room for him during the summer at such a competitive rate was beyond anyone’s guess.

(Money, obviously.)

Somehow, SHIELD was still being funded well enough for them to offer a guest one of the best luxury accommodations in the city.

The tiny, invisible ear-piece was well-disguised and Will’s voice was soft and tinny in his ear.

_ “There are three bugs in the room,” _ he said. 

The gold interiors of the large hall and bedroom were fit for a king. Quentin was surprised that there were only three bugs in the vast stateroom.

He bounced on the bed and made a show of falling on the comforters. He took off his gloves and dropped them beside him. He imagined SHIELD agents, even Dimitri, watching him for any suspicious activity. 

Well, they want info. Quentin made a big deal of playing with the not-so-cheap gold band on his left ring finger. 

_ “Tori’s placed the EMP in the sewers right by the main tributary,” _ Will continued, knowing that Quentin wouldn’t be able to respond.  _ “We’ll need to stall for long enough since Peter’s trip isn’t for five more days.” _

Quentin sighed. His body was craving a long nap, but he knew Fury would be waiting for him. Luckily, The hero version of him wouldn’t be taking any shot from anyone on this planet, so he’d have some leeway.

They really should have changed names.

_ “Two agents went to your apartment to check on Quentin Beck, 616.” _

That made him freeze. SHIELD was fast. They’d managed to track him down already.

Will’s calm voice soothed him. Quentin tried to relax into the mattress, waiting for the rest of the news.

_ “Dana handled it well. The drones gave a really good show. No triggers.” _

The result made him smile.

Quentin waited for an hour before leaving his lovely room and making his way down to the restaurant. It was a beautiful place. The halls were lit in gold and white lights giving the red wallpapers a wonderful velvety highlight. The smell of delicious cooking wafted from the kitchen and Quentin found a good space by a window to relax and pick up his menu.

Maria Hill joined him within minutes.

She was one of the Dusted. Quentin’s thorough research on her and Fury gave him confidence. He had lived in a world where neither she nor Fury had existed.

“May I?” she asked. He almost laughed at her politeness.

“Of course. You’re paying anyway.”

She barely blinked, sitting opposite him in the booth. The restaurant was completely empty save for them and the waiter who came up to get their orders.

“Veg or non-veg?” Quentin asked her. Hill simply looked towards the waiter and said, “A glass of water, please.”

“Certainly, madam,” the man replied before turning to Quentin.

“I haven’t decided yet, but I’d like a champagne bottle, your finest if you will.”

The waiter nodded and left.

Quentin shot Hill a cheeky grin. “I like the room. Do you give all your heroes a six-star treatment?”

Hill leaned against the backrest. “You’re lucky that we have the range to manage that. A few months ago, we were swamped.”

“My good luck strikes again.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Do you have a name?”

It hit him slightly late that they’d never introduced themselves. Oh well.

“Yes… you?”

“Maria Hill, deputy chief of SHIELD. We monitor preternatural, enhanced, and/or extraterrestrial threats.”

Hill’s posture was alert and almost natural. She’d been in the business long enough. Quentin was half glad Fury wasn’t here interrogating him, and half disappointed since according to their records, the Elemental monsters were supposed to be the major threat at the moment.

“Hello there, deputy chief. I’m Quentin Beck of the last standing Earth Battalion against extraterrestrial threats.”

He gave her a wide grin before pointing at the menu, “You sure you wouldn’t want to share a late lunch with me?”

She didn’t seem all that pleased with his cavalier attitude. It was probably a little too much like Tony Stark. He needed to tone it down.

He cleared his throat. “And who was the other one? The one with the eye-patch, trench coat, men in black character?”

“Commander Fury of SHIELD.”

“Command… his name is Fury?”

“Yes, what year are you from?”

Hill’s question nearly caught him off guard, but he found his footing. “2039. It was a long year. The thirties were wild.”

She folded her arms. “You look older.”

Quentin stared. “I’m sorry, have we met before?”

Hill took out her cellphone and placed it on the table, screen facing up. She tapped the button on the side and a blue projection lit up above it.

Quentin gawked at it. That was a Starkphone. That was  _ his  _ Holo Tech.

He pushed down the inflow of anger, frustration, and confusion to focus on the projection. The bright light showed a clean-shaven Quentin Beck exiting a familiar apartment in NYC. Dana, disguised as Quentin, walked down the street, crossed the road and went into a cyber café.

“That’s… me?” he asked.

“The version of you from this dimension. This was taken an hour ago.”

Quentin grimaced. “You spy on people so easily.”

“We were checking your story,” Hill responded. “You passed.”

He looked back at the projection. “Wait, what year are we in now? I thought this was the past?”

“It is. It’s 2024.”

Quentin dropped the menu. “Um… why do I look so old?! What are your pollution levels?”

Hill swiped a hand through the projection to show another angle of the video capture of Quentin walking across the road. “In this world, Quentin Beck was born in 1986.”

He was glad that he got Cole and Desiree to go through the scripts. “Apparently, I’m a Boomer?”

Hill sighed. “What year were you born in?”

“2001. 21st century, all the way!” Quentin dropped his head with a groan before saying, “Things just can’t get any worse, can they?”

He heard the projection switch off. “Mr. Beck, you said that these Elemental monsters can destroy planets.”

“They can, they did, and they will.”

“You said that you will help us.”

Quentin raised his head and grew serious. “I will. We couldn’t stop the destruction of my Earth. But we were so unprepared. The monsters kept cropping up at seemingly random spots, wiping out cities and chunks of land. It was horrifying. We had to call any enhanced personnel to help out and even then it was too much.”

He swallowed, staring at the table now. “It took months to learn how to deflect their attacks, how to kill them. By the time the last monster struck, we were weakened. Our defenses were wrought through. So much of the funding went to transport people to safer planets. We were basically just delaying the inevitable.”

Hill’s face was somber. Unlike Fury, she was better at sympathizing or even allowing herself to reflect the emotions of the people around her.

“I’m sorry. You must have lost a lot.”

Quentin gave the saddest of frowns, directed only at the gleaming table. He closed his fist, letting his ring touch the menu. “I lost everything.”

He let the tears build up in his eyes, but not enough to let them fall out. 

“The same will happen here,” he continued, now staring at Hill. “These monsters are on the planet, growing in the elements to get strong enough to attack. I caught the first two and destroyed them. There’s only fire and water left. Fire is the worst, but water can drown the continents.”

He rubbed his face and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. 

Hill placed her folded arms on the table and asked, “You said that if we fail to defeat them, they’ll grow stronger.”

Quentin nodded. “We need Beta rays to damage their core structures. We’ve tried missiles before, but it only broke them temporarily. They always kept reforming. That’s what’s in my Runes. I focus intense heat rays with Beta like wavelength and target their centers.”

“Can we manufacture weapons like that?”

He straightened his shoulders. “You won’t have time. When we defeat a monster, the next one is triggered. They’re actually just festering on the planet, growing stronger to attack, but destroying one makes the others aggressive. And I killed two in a day.”

Hill’s face showed horror for a mere split second. “They have loyalty to each other?”

“Substantially,” he swallowed. “In my world, it took us four tries to defeat the earth monster… Sandman, if you like gallows humor. But it had grown strong enough to start underwater earthquakes. One of the Tsunamis actually washed up to South of Italy all the way from Egypt. It awoke the water creature which then destroyed Venice and a good piece of the country within days.”

Quentin let out a breath. “We kept losing so many people… it was chaos.”

If Maria Hill was known as a stone-cold overseer of plans, it was just a façade. Quentin saw a vulnerable and comforting side to her now.

“But you defeated the earth creature in one go. Can we hope for an optimistic turnout?”

He moved his hands around. “Not too hopeful about this, but… Venice seems quiet now. I give it a week? But there’s no telling. I’m sure this is where it’ll hit because the water channels connect to many different places from this city. Not to mention the collateral damage, that’s a major factor of the creatures’ targets.”

Quentin looked out the window. Innocent pedestrians were milling about, walking around the calm streets. None of them would know what was coming in a few days.

“You have to evacuate the city,” Quentin whispered. “They’re all in danger.”

Hill sneered. “No government will allow anything like that without proper evidence. I know you said elemental motions can be detected with the right measures, but until then, they’ll do jack about it.”

Quentin snorted. “I guess your world’s not so different from mine. Bureaucracy was hell.”

She smirked. “Still is.”

The mood felt light enough for him to chill. But he’d never let his guard down. This was still an act.

“I can take the water monster down. I can do that. The first round is easy but still demanding. If we can get civilians out of the way, I can destroy it with the least damage.”

Hill nodded slowly. “I’ll get back to you on that. One more thing, though.”

“Yeah?”

“You said you work alone?”

Quentin winced. “Sorry about that… I was just speaking from experience. I’ve had friends, teammates who’d given up. I don’t… I don’t want to blame them, but if we’d managed to be honest with each other, we would have been able to save some part of the planet. We would have been able to work better. It probably makes things harder on you. Yes, if you have people who can help, call them. That will really help.”

Hill frowned, “I was going to say that we don’t have anybody on call at the moment.”

“... oh.”

“Yeah.”

“So…” Quentin leaned back, not really stunned by the news. “I thought you guys had a lot of attacks by monsters. I mean, you believed me right off the bat.”

Hill shrugged. “We had a major battle last year. Many of our enhanced left to get some distance… Has the Snap ever happened in your dimension?”

Quentin shook his head slowly. “You’re not talking about some viral meme, are you?”

“Thanos.”

“No… what’s that?”

Hill sighed. “That’s good. For you, I mean.”

Quentin raised an eyebrow. “Thanks, but you have a team of enhanced?”

“Used to. Right now, we’re still very scattered.”

“Seems a little too perfect of a time to attack,” he muttered. 

Hill huffed and raised her hand. The waiter came back and Quentin sat up.

“His bill is on me,” she said. Then she turned to Quentin. “Be ready to leave at six. I’ll send one of our men to pick you up. We have a lot to plan.”

**~~~~~**

They’d sent Dimitri to guide him to SHIELD’s secret base.

Both men stared at each other, outside Quentin’s room. Cameras were trained on them. Dimitri was actually Surat Denzel, pretending to be a new addition in SHIELD, but was a spy for Quentin and his team. Quentin was actually from this planet, and not an inter-dimensional warrior with superpowers. 

And they had to pretend to not know each other.

Was this how actors felt when they played scenes but knew that everything was scripted and that nothing was real?

Dimitri barely said a word. Quentin was glad about that. The two left the hotel and took a boat from the nearest dock.

Venice was really a beautiful place. The sky was getting dark with the sun just having dipped below the horizon. The red and blue colors in the sky were scattered over the light clouds with stars peeking out and twinkling softly. The canals had only a few small boats moving in different directions. Some large ships were just outside the shallow reefs, hosting cruise parties. The music from the distant almost echoed around the graceful surrounds.

Quentin looked around the roads and up the buildings. The lights were on illuminating everything in a beautiful glow.

Did Venice look so wonderful every twilight? Was it this gorgeous and heavenly?

There were people walking around, hands clasped, and faces flushed.

There was delicious coffee and espresso being sold by stores even now, the delirious scent wafting everywhere.

There was  _ Victoria  _ standing by one of the flower stalls, looking over the bouquets thoughtfully.

Quentin was slammed down to reality.

He had a job.

Venice was wonderful, but it was just another venue like Ixtenco, unaware of the devil lurking around.

Dimitri sailed around to stone brink entrance leading to a hidden cove. The sounds of the city were left behind and the careful odor of the sewers reached them. The boat’s soft puttering was suddenly loud in the silence. The dark and cool waters were only disturbed by the boat.

They parked by a set of stone stairs, leading up to a series of intricate tunnels. Quentin followed Dimitri through the largest opening and walked into the temporary SHIELD ‘office’ of Venice.

Fury and Hill were by another opening, muttering in soft voices. There were at least six other people in the area. Some were at their systems, typing away swiftly, some were checking contents in mysterious boxes. One woman was stationed at a glass table in the center of the space.

Quentin recognized the lights blinking around the table. She had connected Holo Tech capabilities to the table projector.

“Mr. Beck,” Fury called.

Quentin looked up, straightening his back, and delivering a regal, “Commander Fury.”

“How was your meal?”

“Delicious.”

“And your room?”

“Extravagant.”

Fury folded his arms. Quentin could already feel the sweat pool in his scalp. He wasn’t a projection now. This second meeting had to go perfectly.

“You always wear your suit?”

Quentin blinked and looked down at his disagreeable outfit. The hero’s look.

“The truth? I’d rather be in pajamas, but the uniform keeps the radiation from spreading around. Especially when I have to fight and my adrenaline is running.”

“You expecting a fight now?” Fury asked.

“Hopefully not. Have to be prepared, though.”

Quentin wasn’t sure if his answer hit the right bells. Fury kept up the stony stare until he relented and walked over.

“You gave us a week’s deadline.”

“An optimistic outlook,” Quentin reminded him.

“Yeah. So, here’s what’s going to happen. You give us a thorough explanation of everything you know about these creatures. We’ll mark a timeline and pinpoint when the next attack can happen. We’ll set out satellites to monitor tremors or ‘elemental motions’. At the first sign, you will enter the fray while we get the civilians out.”

Fury turned to the technician behind him and asked her to start placing coordinates over the planet.

Quentin frowned, looking over at Hill and then back at Fury. “Wait, you’re not going to evacuate the area? Is that really not possible?”

“It’s not,” Hill remarked. “Since we don’t have the exact time of attack, things are going to be more difficult.”

Quentin swallowed, clenching his jaw. “We’ll have to be alert at all times. I’ll show you what to look for along the tectonic plates.”

They spent the next two hours working on a projection map of Venice and detailing the weak points of the city. Any area where the canals met or split and the most crowded tourist locations were marked in red.

And now he knew which places to avoid.

Quentin elucidated on the mechanics of the Elementals. Everything he and Gutes had sat down to build, the whole new world of the monsters were now flowing out of his mouth like a song and being heard by the best of the best in the secret shadow business. And they believed him.

They lapped up the story like it was just another day filled with horrific, other-worldly beings. They listened to the tales of death counts, the brutal attacks, the fanatic groups who thought it was nature fighting back for all the horrid things humans had done, the funding that just fell because the governments wondered if it was even worth trying to save the people stuck in tight spots.

The dystopia became the truth.

It was a long two hours. Quentin walked around to stretch his limbs against the weight of his ridiculous suit. He watched as the technician began to build a projection of the monsters. The air and earth creatures were based off of the real ones that attacked Ixtenco. But she also coded in images of fire and water creatures to show an artist’s rendering of what threats to expect.

Quentin almost grinned. Gutes had gotten the right idea for using elemental monsters.

“Beck, a word,” Fury called jarring him out of his thoughts. The man walked away from the group, expecting Quentin to follow.

He shot a look over at Hill who tilted her head in the Commander’s direction. Just go with it.

They went away from the others and stood by the edge of the stone platform. Quentin looked down at the black water, preparing for the real deal.

“This planet has faced a lot,” Fury said, looking into the distance. “When it comes to extraterrestrial devastation, Earth had the wrong end of the stick. Any enhanced threat is prioritized. The political climate is rife as unsettled waters.”

Shakespeare level drama, huh. Quentin could adapt.

“Armed forces got the major funds, huh?”

Fury side-eyed him. “Right now, you’re the only hero we have. After our last threat, many of our enhanced peers have dropped off the face of the planet, or simply gone into hiding. Some have given up their titles. It’s the perfect time for an attack.”

Quentin frowned. “I can’t tell if you’re trying to suspect me or welcome me.”

“What I’m saying,” Fury emphasized. “Is that you’re not going to have back-up for this round. I know you think that a team of heroes is only going to weigh you down, but I recommend that you’ll find it easier to walk out of a fight with someone watching your six.”

It was obvious that he was talking about the Avenger Initiative. Quentin wondered how the man could still hold on to them after everything that had happened.

“A team is better than a lone wolf,” Quentin agreed. “And I can work with them, but I have to say, I’d rather do my own thing for now. I’m helping you with the next two attacks. I have no way of going back to my world. I’m not sure I want to go back. There’s barely anything waiting for me there.”

He turned back to the water and sighed. “This place is new. It’s a fresh start for me. Look, you said there aren’t any other heroes right now. I’ll take care of this mess, you get me papers to stay here. I know that’s what you’re thinking.”

Fury leveled him with a look. “We can cut a deal. You seem very confident about taking the monsters down.”

“I can,” Quentin confirmed. “I’ve fought them enough times to know what to expect. And I know what’s at stake. I’ve lived through it.”

He held a staring contest with Nick freakin’ Fury.

“Sounds like a plan,” Fury finally said.

Quentin nearly sighed in relief, ready to slump over and call it a day.

Instead, he simply nodded. “Great.”

He looked at the water and found the boat. “Think you can send me regular clothes?”

“Sure. One other thing.”

Quentin’s heart practically stuttered, mind racing to check if there was anything he’d forgotten. 

Fury lowered his arms. “If I do find another hero ready to help, you’re gonna need to play nice.”

Oh. Cool.

“Sounds like a plan,” he parroted, giving an easy smile.

It was interesting to know how deep he was falling into his character. Quentin was suddenly glad he didn’t change his name. This felt like method acting, living and breathing every moment of a persona.

Quentin Beck was a man who had the means to save everyone. Now, the head of SHIELD was listening to him, taking his word as truth. This was the reality he’s building.

Quentin didn’t fly back to the hotel. No, he took the boat back and then used the single drone he’d placed in the hotel room to make a projection of his hero self soaring out the window from his room so all the cameras can catch him.

In the meantime, Quentin himself simply put on a disguise, used a fresh suit to project as another person, and simply walked out of the hotel.

His team was stationed in an abandoned train tunnel. Doug had kept the base ready for them to populate when required.

“Nice job with the interior, Linus!” Quentin crowed as he entered the long dimly lit tunnel. The team went up in cheers, the raucous echoing through the empty space.

“That was brilliant!” Tori gasped as Janice surged forward to hug him. Quentin laughed and fist-bumped Dennis at his side.

“It was unbelievable!” Vivi crowed. “You were looking right at Nick Fury and lying!”

“I deserve an Oscar,” Quentin said and they laughed.

“Peak performance,” Gutes nodded and Janice shoved him.

“Oh, man… this might actually work,” Tess muttered, shaking her head.

Quentin placed a hand over his heart, “You had doubts? Tess, you wound me.”

She rolled her eyes and Quentin took a step back to look at every one. The team was all prepared. Will and Vivi had been readying the drones, Tess and Frank were monitoring everything on the Parkers. Gutes was coordinating with Dana and keeping an eye on the script. Janice was ready with the costume, the one on hand and the projection data, Tori had the EMP loaded into a van for easy transportation.

Everyone had a role and they were playing it perfectly.

“What’s the news on Peter’s passport?” Quentin asked.

Frank piped up, “It’s reached the post office. He has to just pick it up from there. We have enough time.”

“Good. Any red flags from Cole?”

“None, but he’s seen—now don’t freak out, he’s seen someone hanging out with the Parkers -”

“What d’you mean don’t freak out?” Quentin asked, heart rate immediately spiking. “Who -”

Tess held out a hand. “We caught Happy Hogan talking to the aunt often. No, not as a security detail! It’s completely casual!”

Quentin was about to explode. Happy Hogan was too high up on their ‘watch list’ to just pass over as a soft mention.

“How is it casual?” he demanded.

“Hogan’s flirting with May Parker,” Janice sighed. “They don’t talk about work, Spider-Man, Tony Stark, or EDITH.”

He took a few deep breaths.

“Alright. That’s… let’s not breeze past it because it looks safe, we have to keep an eye on them.”

“We are,” Tess said. “Dana’s been watching Hogan for a while. The man isn’t a tech wiz, we’re fine for now.”

“For now,” Quentin agreed, trying to unclench his jaw. “Okay. Pull up the map of Venice, we need to isolate our primary area for attack. Nothing’s changed, don’t worry, but Fury’s going to have people stationed at places I might not have marked, so let’s be prepared!”

**~~~~~**

The latest call between Peter and Ned Leeds was bookmarked since it hit a few target words.

**Ned: Yoooo! I got the new copy of Beast Slayers!**

**Peter: Battle Brothers? Nice.**

**Ned: Yeah, I figured since it’s gonna be 9 hours, we could get a good jump on it.**

**Peter: That sounds great, but Ned, I don’t think we’ll even be sitting next to each other.**

**Ned: We got adjoining tickets, Pete. You even got a window seat!**

**Peter: I know, but you can have that if you want. I sort of… well, I’m wanna sit with MJ.**

**Ned: MJ? **

**Peter: Yeah. I was planning to get a drive of some of her favorite documentaries.**

**Ned: Wow. Why?**

**Peter: ‘Cause she’s my… our friend, Ned.**

**Ned: You never brought my favorite documentaries to watch with me.**

**Peter: I got you that ESB podcast that we listened to on New Year’s!**

**Ned: Oh yeah! That was nice.**

**Peter: Okay, so I’m going to be sitting with MJ then.**

**Ned: Or you could invite her to be part of our team. She might like Beast Slayers.**

**Peter: I could… but I was planning to just, you know, spend some time with her.**

**Ned: Without me?**

**Peter: I’m really sorry, dude. But I sorta… I mean I…**

**Ned (sniggering): I know you like her, Pete. I was pulling your leg.**

**Peter: ...oh. Rude.**

**Ned: But seriously, you want to just watch documentaries for the whole flight?**

**Peter: Not just that. I really wanna talk with her, get to know her. She’s really cool and amazing and… and I just wanna have a fun trip. Two weeks of no stress, no mess, no Spider-Man.**

**Ned: Whoa… so, you’re really not taking your suit?**

**Peter: Of course not! What if it triggers the metal detectors?**

**Ned: What about the first Stark suit? That’ll pass through.**

**Peter: Europe doesn’t need Spider-Man, Ned. I just want to enjoy sunny Europe and spend it with MJ.**

**Ned: Alright then. It’s a nine-hour flight, you could still pop over and play Beast Slayers…**

**Peter: I’ll think about it. But it’s going to be a calm and good vacation. I’m just gonna be me.**

**Ned: Sure. Just you is fine. I was saying that in case something happens -**

**Peter: Nothing’s gonna happen.**

**Ned: Yeah, yeah! But just in case -**

**Peter: Ned, nothing will happen. There’s gonna be no bad guys trying to rob banks, no aliens attacking the planet, and no nothin’. **

**Ned: What if there was though?**

**Peter (long sigh): Then… someone else can handle it!**

**Ned: Really? You’d really not get involved?**

**Peter: Ned, what part of ‘vacation’ do you not get?**

**Ned: Okay, fine! It’s just… you’ve been going out as Spider-Man so I thought you were fine with it.**

**Peter: I am fine.**

**Ned: Still, you don’t want to talk about the Compound -**

**Peter: There’s nothing important about the Compound. I’m fine with patrolling Queens and a few other boroughs. I just don’t want to take this shtick to Europe where it’s not needed. I’m sure they have their own heroes.**

**Ned: Do they?**

**Peter: There’s gotta be! I know there are like hundreds of people who can take on supernatural problems.**

**Ned: Whoa, you’ve fought ghosts?!**

**Peter: What? No, You know what I meant!**

** _Beeps occurring on the line._ **

**Ned: Is that for you?**

**Peter: Man, someone keeps calling me.**

**Ned: Wrong number?**

**Peter: True Caller isn’t helping. I don’t take random calls. My senses go all weird.**

**Ned: Your tingling thing?**

**Peter: Oh god. You’ve been talking to May.**

**Ned: No! I mean, just a bit. **

**Peter: Ugh. I’ll see ya tomorrow. I got that fundraiser to go to.**

**Ned: See you. Let me know if you bring the suit though! I’m packing my laptop.**

**Peter: I’m not taking the suit, Ned!**

Tess summarized the call for Quentin.

He immediately put on a trace to check who’d been repeatedly calling Peter, and lo and behold!

It was Fury.

“The funniest thing about this is that Peter has no clue he’s ghosting Nick Fury!” Frank murmured, a grin threatening to split his face.

Quentin folded his arms. “His web-shooters are separate from the suit, isn’t it? Even if he doesn’t take either of the suits —”

“Nano-tech bracelets.”

“Right. He can fight without the suit, so we’re fine here.” Quentin looked away from the desk. “Any other strange activity?”

“None. This morning he went out to sell some toys. It was so cute!”

Quentin had to hold in a groan. Half his team was convinced that Peter was ‘totes adorbs’.

“Why was it cute?” he asked, regretting his question already.

Frank opened a new window on his screen and pulled up footage from a CCTV across the street of a small collector’s store. Quentin could see Peter walking through the entrance, carrying a small carton box.

“He sold the toys to get money to buy something for Jones!” Frank cried. “Has anyone ever done that for you, Q?”

Quentin frowned. “He has a fund set up by Stark. Has it really not been touched?”

“Except for shifting apartments, no. Stubborn Parkers.”

Tess walked over from her station and peered over Frank’s shoulder. She asked Quentin, “Did you get Cole’s message?”

“About the passport? No, is something wrong?”

“No… Peter still hasn’t picked it up.”

Quentin dropped his hands and looked at the ceiling in defeat. “The flight’s tomorrow!”

“We know,” Tess said, not looking too bothered. “And so does he. He’ll do it at the last minute, I’m sure.”

“He’s not gonna miss the trip,” Frank reassured them. “Look at everything he’s been doing till now. He’s not gonna miss out on the chance to get together with Jones!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Come on, Tess!” Frank complained. “You’re really not even the least bit curious about how it’ll go?”

“I’m a little more focused on our job here, Frankie.”

Quentin patted Frank on the back. “Where’s he now?”

Frank stuck his tongue out at Tess before answering, “Well, he just took down a mafia gang in a restaurant and now he’s at the FEAST fundraiser.”

“... okay.”

Tess left in a huff. Quentin watched her go and turned back to Frank, “Is she fine?”

“I guess so,” Frank muttered. “She still doesn’t like the part where we plan to trick a teenager into handing over a multi-billion dollar weapons program.”

Quentin had to work on breathing to slow his anger. There was no use yelling over this. He knew Tess would still get the job done, regardless of her doubts.

He had to keep a much closer eye on her though. If she decided to run...

Well, if she did, Quentin knew what to do.

“I got the footage from the restaurant,” Frank said, not noticing Quentin’s stormy cloud. “His fighting style is sort of hands-off with the Iron Spider suit when compared to the other Stark suit.”

Quentin shook his head. “Good. Have we isolated all his abilities?”

“Yup. Cross-referenced it with Dimitri’s list. He really is sticky, you know? Like, that’s one of his powers.”

“Good, how’s our suit coming along?”

One of the contingencies was Quentin expecting Fury to win and getting Pater into the fray. And even though he had his classic suit, Peter would appreciate a different one while fighting in Europe.

Hence, an alternative uniform.

Frank brought up the specs for the alternate ‘stealth’ suit on his screen.

“We can mess with his sixth sense,” Frank said. “The measurements are slightly off, so the whole outfit is uncomfortable, especially with prolonged use. We’ve got very subtle distractions that can throw his rhythm off guard.”

Quentin had to admire the build. They knew that Peter would somehow try to defend people from the water monster in Venice without any kind of suit, but in Prague, (if Fury succeeds in bringing him along that is,) Peter could be in a completely new outfit. He’ have to break it in and fight the fire creature at the same time.

This would even help with the live-action interaction capabilities they’d added in the drones’ programming. All of Quentin’s fighting would just be a projection from a safe base away from the attack zone. He’d have to communicate and respond to Peter’s words and actions in real-time.

A distracted hero would fit the bill perfectly.

“How long until that’s ready?” Quentin asked, standing up to hold the back of Frank’s chair.

“At least another day. We’re calibrating the goggles to the specifications.”

It was noon the next day when the team finally got some activity. They were ready with the EMP and drones, set up in the abandoned tunnels of Venice. They would deploy the units the moment the kids reached the city. The new attack zone was just two miles away from the school’s booked rooms in Hotel DeMatteis, a building still undergoing renovations with a far too sunken foundation.

Midtown’s flight would be leaving the East Coast within a few hours and Peter. Still. Had. Not. Picked. Up. His. Passport.

“Is he doing this on purpose?!” Quentin yelled. On the other end of the video call, Cole sighed.

“He’s at Delmar’s, right now, Q.”

“If he’s getting his stupid sandwich—”

“He’s buying a dual adapter for headphones,” Cole confirmed. “I thought he’s supposed to be fluent in Spanish...?”

Quentin looked over at Tori and Will, standing by a wet staircase. The tunnel had a permanent smell of decay and a feeling of dampness that they were almost getting used to.

“He’s all packed and ready to go, I’m sure he’ll head over to the post office any time now,” Will relayed, far too used to Quentin’s outbursts by now.

Cole adjusted his phone, looking out of the discrete van parked across Delmar’s store. It was a risk to be so close to an enhanced while spying on them, but Peter had been in a rush all morning and had barely even noticed someone following him. Cole knew how to keep proper distance and stay under Peter’s radar.

“We have a live feed from the post office,” Cole said. “The moment he goes there, I’ll head over to the airport.”

Quentin nodded slowly. “Fine. Did you get anything from Hogan?”

“Nah. But Fury’s been in contact with him since Peter isn’t taking any of his calls.”

“We know. What about the aunt?”

Cole paused for dramatic effect. “She packed his old suit.”

Quentin blinked. “Well then. I guess Europe might get to see the ol’ red and blue Spider-Man up close.”

Tori frowned. “Pete’s not gonna like that. He’s very particular about his identity, remember?”

“Yes, but Fury’s going to rope him in somehow. He could use the old one in Venice and we’ll switch it out with the black one in Prague.”

Frank raised his eyebrows. “If it goes that way, we’ll be ready.”

He tapped his knuckles over a suitcase by the table’s corner. Quentin and the others went still.

“Stealth suit’s ready?” He asked quietly.

Frank grinned and unlocked the case, displaying the pitch-black outfit with the uncomfortable stretch mask and goggles.

Will leaned forward. “And we’re sure this is what Fury will suggest?”

Quentin matched Frank’s smile. “It’s one of the possibilities.”

“He shouldn’t get too hurt, though,” Will said.

Quentin lowered his phone. “Don’t worry, Will. If it all goes perfectly to plan, Peter’s going to walk away, none the wiser, and we’ll have full access to EDITH. I just need every loose end cut and every avenue covered.”

Tori grinned. “We’re ready for the Venice fight.”

“Good. Cole, head on to the airport. I’ll keep an eye on him till he boards the plane.”

Cole nodded and ended the call. Quentin tossed the phone from hand to hand.

This was almost fun.

Quentin used the traffic cameras to track Peter’s movements. Peter ran from the store with his bags all packed. He didn’t even bother with hailing a cab, simply opting to zip through the streets to reach the post office.

Passport in hand, he got onto a train and finally went to the student meet up point at the school.

Vivi gave a quiet giggle.

Quentin rolled his shoulders and turned to face her, already dreading what silly act Peter did now. 

The screen lit up her face, but not as much as whatever had caught her fancy.

“What’s he done now?” Quentin asked.

“He’s got a VPN,” Vivi said, unable to wipe her smile. “Jones told him to get one so the government couldn’t track his phone… and he got one!”

Quentin rolled his eyes. “S’not going to stop us from tracking his cell.”

“Nope,” Vivi agreed, turning back to the screen.

It took another full hour for the group to leave for the airport. 

It’s not going to be smooth, but it’s gonna work, Quentin said to himself.

Quentin switched to Cole’s com. Cole was ready to board the plane.

“Quarter-hour updates,” he reminded him.

“I remember. We’re boarding, I’ll check back soon,” Cole said with a quick sigh.

Quentin nodded, tight-lipped, arms braced on the table. Nothing can go wrong. They had all their bases covered.

“Hey, Beckingham?” Gutes called, and Quentin nearly snapped at him. But Gutes was holding out his phone.

Quentin quietly took the cell and pressed it to his ear. It was Dana.

“What’s wrong?”

_ “Nothing’s wrong,” _ Dana said, patient as ever.  _ “But I wanted to let you know that two officers from the NYPD stopped by today. They wanted to talk to you.” _

Quentin’s heart nearly stopped, blood going cold. He had to try twice to get his voice back online.

“What about?”

_ “Something about a missing person. A woman. I told them you were out for the day. But they asked me to get you to talk to them.” _

Dana sounded mildly concerned. Quentin had to force himself to take measured breaths.

“Did they give you a number?”

_ “Yup. Here it is.” _

Quentin noted it down and with barely a hesitation, dialed the cop’s number. He marched away from the team for privacy, standing behind a pillar to look out at the long line of a train track that was built in the tunnels. It stayed unused for a long time which was why this was the perfect way for devious plans.

The cellphone rang three times before a sharp voice answered,  _ “Detective Snyder speaking.” _

“Hello, Detective, this is Quentin Beck,” He said, injecting as much hope into his voice, as he could muster. “You came to my apartment just a while back?”

_ “Yes, my partner and I had called around since we were in the neighborhood. I am sorry to say, Mr. Beck, but this is about Marion Hospet. The department has advised me to close the case and cease active search.” _

Quentin had trouble swallowing. “Wh… what? But she’s still missing.”

_ “I apologize, Mr. Beck.” _ Snyder sounded genuinely sorry.  _ “I wish I could explain in person, but with no new leads for months, we simply have no other trail to venture on. Our best estimation is that she did just pack up and leave. We haven’t found her car, her purse, cell, and laptop.” _

Her voice was almost mellow now.

Quentin couldn’t believe it. He’d managed to fool the police. 

Had he committed the perfect crime?

“I… is that it? You’re just giving up?” He asked, stunned. “I should just give up?”

_ “I cannot make any promises, Mr. Beck,” _ Snyder replied, picking up her volume.  _ “Our best-case scenario is that Ms. Hospet will contact someone, probably you or her colleagues when she is safe and settled.” _

Quentin clutched the phone, “I have to wait for Marion to call? What if she never does? What if she can’t, what if she’s in trouble?”

There was a heavy pause.

_ “I am very sorry,” _ Snyder finally said.  _ “I wish I could do more, but she’s covered her tracks very well. I can only assume she knows what she’s doing.” _

Quentin bowed his head. Tears burned his eyes.

I did it.

If I can get away with murder, then I can definitely pull off the best illusion on the planet. If I can fool all the cops in New York without any actual planning, I can fool the world with months of scheming, with the best team available, with the best tech at my disposal.

I can do this.

Quentin ended the call and looked up at the train tracks, disappearing into the darkness. He could easily imagine a light there.

“Who’s Marion?”

Quentin jerked back, head hitting the pillar behind him. The phone was gripped in his hand and he had to stifle a gasp, looking up to meet Tess’s eyes.

“Wha… Tess, were you listening?”

“Were you talking about Marion Hospet?” Tess pressed. “Marion from SI?”

Quentin’s brain whirred. Tess had worked at Stark Industries too. She would know about Marion.

Anger rose like flames. The air in his lungs felt dry, catching on fire, fury burning the coldness from him.

“That’s none of your business!” He snapped. “I can’t believe you’d sneak up on me!”

Tess raised her chin. “That was the cops, wasn’t it? What did they say?”

Quentin stared. 

She knew.

She knew that Marion was missing.

Did she suspect?

“We’re not talking about this -”

“She’s missing!” Tess hissed. Her eyes were as angry as his. “You know something. You know where she went.”

Several thoughts ran through his head. The main point was that Tess didn’t know what truly happened.

But she suspected something foul.

“Marion left,” Quentin whispered. “She’s gone and no one knows where.”

Tess shook her head, face growing distraught now. “She wouldn’t leave without telling someone.”

“But, she did!” Quentin urged. “And until she calls, we know nothing.”

Tess swallowed, voice trembling, “Something’s off. Marion’s in trouble. I know she is. She would have called me. She should have called me, but I can’t even trace her phone now. It’s like… Marion just vanished.”

She walked back, eyes gliding over the walls, deep in thought. Quentin watched, wordlessly as she turned and left.

Tess was becoming a liability. The sole stain on an otherwise perfect team with a perfect scheme.


	7. Seekers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You're not a jerk for wanting a normal life, kid. It's a hard path. You see things, you do things… make choices, people look up to you… Even if you win a battle sometimes, they die.”
> 
> The look on Peter’s face, the sudden solemness, the weight on his shoulders… that was authentic. The burden he held in his body was something Quentin never thought he’d see in a kid.
> 
> I’m sorry for what Stark had done to you, Quentin thought. I’m here to fix it. I’ll take away the responsibility.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god, it's finally done. This is a monster of an update and I hope you enjoy it. Three months after the previous chapter, I deliver. It was a ride getting into Quentin's head. Let me know what you think!

_ It took Quentin a minute to figure out how to power on the cement mixer. The small but deep pit sat a few yards from his feet. That would suffice. He jammed his thumb into a button and a light came on before the machine gave a sudden roar. Quentin whipped his head around to see if anyone had noticed, had heard the noise. The mixer began to swirl with the cement bag he’d tossed into it. One of the cans beside the bags had some kind of liquid inside, not entirely water. It was slightly viscous and Quentin held his breath as he poured the fluid into the mixer. _

_ Puffs of smoke emerged from the machine. Quentin dropped the empty can and stepped towards the rolled-up rug. There were bumps along the roll, as though Marion’s elbows and knees had somehow dug into the material. Quentin steeled himself and grabbed the ends of the rug, dragging it towards the pit. _

_ With a final yank, he threw the rolled rug down the hole. It hit the bottom with a heavy thud that made him flinch. The machine behind him began to sputter and he immediately had a hand on the bright red lever. _

_ Nothing else for it. Quentin pulled it upwards and watched the machine, still swirling the now very thick cement mix, tilt over and slowly pour its contents into the pit. The heavy grey fluid filled up the hole, slowly enveloping the entirety of the rug. _

_ He could still see strands of her hair sticking out from one end of the rolled-up rug before the cement completely covered it all. _

_ Quentin drove away from the half-torn shelter, hands tightening on the steering wheel. Marion’s car was older than his and it didn’t purr as softly as he would have liked. He made his way west and kept driving till the suburbs. _

_ He passed golf courses and unoccupied lawns before damp fields took over. Moors emerged on either side of the long and lonely road. The sky was still pitch black but the stars seemed clearer than they were in the city. Quentin drove till the gauge began to blink to say that he was low on gas. _

_ He nearly went right by a wet marsh. Quentin slowed down and stared at the waterlogged area with sunken wild plants and swampy mud. It looked like quicksand with water floating on top. _

_ Quentin didn’t think twice. He tucked his gun into his pant lip and picked up the three empty bullet casings. The road was completely deserted so no one watched him. Quentin rolled down all the windows and turned off the engine. He removed the keys before stepping out into the brisk breeze. He shivered, shutting the door and stepped back to check the angle of the front tires. Perfect. _

_ His mind was quiet with this task. He’d been afraid that the pain would return, that once the shock abated, panic would resurface. But it hadn’t been so bad. Quentin managed to hide Marion. Hopefully, it would be a while till authorities realized that the cement pit ought to be dug up or broken. _

_ Quentin braced his hands over the back of the car and began to push, straining to get the car going at first. It moved gradually. His hands shook. They would certainly ache in the morning. _

_ The car entered the swamp, sinking into the dirt and mud. Quentin kept pushing till it began to sink from its weight. He kept a hand on it till he reached the edge of the marshy lake where he stood and watched Marion’s car slowly disappearing from sight. Thick bubbles came up once the car went under. Quentin waited till the surface of the swamp stayed still with no more ripples disturbing the muddy water. _

_ Then he turned and walked back to New York. _

* * *

Venice was a bright and beautiful place. It teemed with local storekeepers selling beautiful merchandise, colorful tourists loudly announcing themselves as outsiders in unsubtle ways, birds twittering around under the sun in St. Mark’s Square.

Quentin was in a blue printed Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts looking for all the world as a dismissable foreigner on the phone. 

He was instead talking to Hill through an earpiece communication device. 

_ “There was a tremor around the city. No immediate aftershocks, so this could be it. Suit up.” _

“I’ll be there,” Quentin responded, pulling his cap down. “Any word about clearance?”

“_ No, _ ” he could hear her vaguely concealed frustration. “ _ We can’t rely on that now. We have sentries posted at the hot spots for civilian safety. You need to focus on taking down the monster. _”

“Will do,” Quentin said, leaning against the stone wall of one of the stores. “Remember, no arms. We can’t let this go sideways.”

_ “I’ll see what I can do.” _

Her clipped response made his frown deepen. No matter. SHIELD was posted at the wrong spots around the city. Once the monster hit, it was Quentin’s show.

Hill logged off and Quentin turned his com off, dialing an untraceable number on his temp phone. Tori picked up within a ring.

“All set?” Quentin asked, looking out into St. Mark’s Square. The tourist groups were very easy to divide, every one of them sticking to their cliques.

_ “We’re ready here. Our new friend’s updated the security deets of spots we can avoid. We’ll start from the canal, go over the banks, and end at the Square. Maybe break a bit of the Basilica.” _

“Stick to scenario 4,” Quentin harped. “That’s our best and safest bet. We can’t let our angry friends regroup here.”

_ “Done. Will and Vivi have the simulation ready,” _ Tori muttered before her voice took on a snarky tone. _ “When are you getting back from your voyeuristic outing?” _

Quentin smiled, turning his head to look directly at Peter Parker. The boy was standing barely ten feet from him.

“Soon, just want a quick look at what we’re dealing with here.”

“_ Have fun. We need you in seven _,” Tori said. He imagined her rolling her eyes.

Quentin was most definitely having fun. Peter wasn’t even aware there was someone plotting against him, standing so close. His sixth sense had definitely taken leave.

Peter had eyes only for Michelle Jones. The kid was hanging by the columns, watching her from a distance, almost like a creep. If it wasn’t for his baby-face, people might have been alarmed.

Eh, anything that made Quentin’s life easier.

Quentin kept his phone tucked between his ear and shoulder, pretending to be very busy as he made his way through the Square. Once he was out of the way, he headed straight for their hideaway.

Cole greeted him in the wet corridor, fresh off the plane from NY.

“Hey, Cole. How was the flight?” Quentin asked, tossing his cap away. The baseball cap might seem like a questionable choice for a disguise, but it’d worked.

“Oh, man, it was tight!” Cole sighed. “Super fun. I can’t wait to tell you about the perfume incident!”

“The _ what _now?”

“The kid said he had a perfume allergy.”

Quentin frowned, “But he doesn’t.”

“Exactly!”

Cole looked way too amused to make sense. Quentin raised an eyebrow and shook his head. “Is it relevant to the plan?”

“Well… it sorta reinforces the fact that the kid’s crushing hard and might be distracted for the day.”

Quentin didn’t need to have confirmation of that, seeing as how he’d witnessed it for himself. But it was good to know. 

“Great. Where are we now?”

He and Cole walked into the main room where all their tech was set up. Will and Vivi were ready with their respective systems, and Dennis and Frank were ready on the redundant ones. Janice held out the mocap suit for Quentin to take.

“Dana is being you in a coffee shop,” Tess said, reading off of her tablet. “Tori’s ready with her EMP machine, SHIELD’s patrolling our decoy hotspots, and there are no Avengers, so we’re clear on that horizon.”

“We need to strike now before anyone thinks it's suspicious,” Will called from his chair.

“Okay, then,” Quentin quickly changed into his suit during Tess’s inventory. The soft grey updated motion capture suit was perfect and familiar. It even had a pocket now for his burner phone.

“Is Gutes back yet?”

“On his way,” Tess inspected her tablet. “He says that the kid and the girl are near the bank and that two of Pete’s classmates are on the canal.”

Quentin held back a growl. “Get a drone to push them out of the water during the attack. Steer clear of them. Can’t risk anything happening to his friends.”

“I’ll see to it,” Vivi responded diving back into her screen.

“Fire it up, Tori,” Quentin nodded towards Victoria. He placed his glass helmet over his head, watching the green readout appear on them.

Tori switched on her EMP device. It gave a low hum, coming to life. She swiped her finger through the screen on her tab and the device gave a short blast directed towards the surface. At the same time, WIll and Vivi released the drones under their cloaking effects, some moving through the channel’s water, some hovering by the tall buildings, very neatly out of sight.

“Pressure,” Quentin directed, holding on to one of the strongholds in their wet cavern-like base. Frank switched his panels and the water pressure in the pipes surrounding the canals went low.

Tori amped up her device and let out another blast. This felt more like a quake as things shook about. Will began the sim and Quentin watched the screen on his heads-up display unit as the water exploded from the channel, rising and swirling (quite unlike cement).

Focus, Q.

The com came to life and Quentin heard Hill’s voice. _ “Can you see that, Beck?!” _

Quentin let out a huff. “Is it the south?!”

_ “Damn it, yeah! That’s way off from our predicted areas!” _

“Shit, they must have expected us! But if they knew why would they hit the same city?”

_ “No time to guess, just focus on the task!” _ Hill barked. “ _ How long till you get there?” _

“Two minutes tops!”

He couldn’t turn off the com once the attack was underway, so he only nodded towards Tess and Tori for them to relay orders to the team. Cole gave him a thumbs-up to let him know he was doing great.

The battle was a stretch. The monster (“Hydro-Man”, Cole had chimed) was a faceless behemoth with powerful limbs and a torso extending all the way from the canals. Quentin watched the water flood the banks, washing through the seafood stalls strung along the market. The underwater drones used their air cannons to direct the water blasts while the overhead units mixed the illusion in real-time. Perfect as always.

Peter began to rise up and face the monster. Quentin just exhaled. The boy wouldn’t be able to do anything to it had it been a real thing. The monster managed to already punch him once and another time, sending the kid crashing against the stone banister, absolutely soaked.

The static in his com crackled. Hill shouted, _ “Beck!” _

“Nearly there!” He panted.

He raised his left arm to activate his access point. Four drones in the outermost circle began the projection for his hero by shooting two laser beams at the monster.

The green smoke was unmistakable. From a distance, Quentin thought he looked like a meteorite heading straight for the monster. He also saw Peter staring up at him, wildly curious.

Quentin’s predicted movements began. His team watched where the water went, Dennis was lookout for any SHIELD agents who arrived far too soon.

He delivered some hits to the monster and it gave a blast back, making him go right into a boat breaking it into pieces. Nice.

The drones began spinning, bringing up rising hurricane motions out of the water as the monster grew larger in size. Quentin’s hero burst out of the water immediately orchestrating a sweeping motion around the creature which had him smacking into the bridge. He let out another blast, taking off the shoulder of the monster when Peter’s voice came up as a cry.

“Excuse me, sir!”

Quentin almost scoffed. Okay… nice mask, kid.

“I can help!” Peter cried, clinging to the stone roof of the bridge. He was unironically wearing a blue with gold trim fancy costume mask, a fool’s mask worn by jesters in royal courts… 

“Let me help! I’m really strong and I’m sticky!” He yelled and Quentin was genuinely impressed that Peter was willing to help even without the suit. His identity was supposed to be his most important thing, or so said the team’s notes.

“I need you to lead it away from the canals!” Quentin directed, easily taking the lead. He immediately had the projection zipping through the buildings, past Peter as the monster crashed through the bridge, following him.

“Hill!” Quentin called. “Is there a deserted space on my route? I just crossed the grand art museum -”

“_ da Vinci museum has a dry clearing _ ,” she barked, sounding like she was racing through the streets herself. _ “It’s right in your path!” _

“On it!” Quentin grinned. Hook, line, and sinker. The Leonardo da Vinci museum was one of the visiting spots for the school tour. 

“We’ve got most of the class here,” Gutes said, giving Quentin a peek at the camera footage from one of their hidden drones. The museum was closed which meant there was nowhere for Peter’s classmates to hide and had to be exposed to the monster.

Tess had been reluctant about this idea. Bringing the monster away from the canals would have reduced its power source, but it still brought them into the city. SHIELD might think that as suspicious. The point was to have Quentin lead the monster away from civilians.

“It’ll work,” Quentin had assured her. “The museum is closed and it’s not a frequented place at this time of the season.”

And now, it was ideal.

“Cape,” Quentin mouthed, suddenly taking notice of the water and smoke shrouding the soothing red of it. Janice blinked, looking at the cape flapping behind the hero. The color seemed faded somehow, masked behind the water and smoke.

“Contrast is holding. We’re already eliminating the wrinkles and lint, I don't think we should add to those effects,” Will mumbled.

Quentin frowned but let it go for how. Soaked clothes should be duller anyway. He caught Gutes’ eye and asked silently, “Peter?”

“He’s webbing up some falling buildings,” Gutes whispered. “On his way, he won’t be able to directly interact or his class will see. They’re already filming it.”

The projection began to take up the entire clearing. There were a few others milling about the attractions but they immediately ran when water flooded the stalls. Parked cycles washed away.

“Peter’s nearly there,” Janice informed.

Dennis frowned. “The class is under the café awning.”

“Hit the tower,” Quentin told Will. He moved his hero to dodge a wave that smashed against a tall bell tower. The structure creaked, bricks falling just as Peter swung up to it. He webbed up a proper layer all around the building and went to check on his friends from the top floor.

“Hit it again,” Tori said. 

Tess gave her a sharp look. “We don’t need it to fall. The kids are too close to it!”

“Pete’ll save them,” Tori waved a hand.

Quentin and Will had the sequence set up to end the fight, but now most of the team were watching Peter get knocked by the heavy bell twice.

Two loud dings echoed from the tower bell and Dennis and Cole winced. “Oooh! That’s gotta leave a mark.”

They watched as Peter simply brushed it off and webbed up another pair of lines from different buildings to stop the tower from tipping over. He weighed the balance by climbing halfway up one of the pillars, slowly rotating the tower to lean away from the café. 

“What’s that tower weigh?” Desiree asked in a hushed voice. It was definitely impressive. Peter was carefully allowing his two lines measured give to angle the entire tower gradually to the ground. 

Quentin swiped a line through his access point signaling Will to end the fight. The final sequence began and the hero brought up larger runes this time conjuring them behind the monster to strangle it. When that ‘didn’t work’ it went on to catch the water hands, securing the wrists in bright green smoke.

The magic tore the monster right down the middle and the resulting blast threw the hero back. The pulse hit the tower and Peter lost his grip on the webs, both of them finally crashing to the ground. The bell gave one final ring before everything was silent.

Quentin directed the hero projection to land on the ground and face Peter’s class who had eyes only for him. They began clapping, applauding, and cheering. 

Even though he was watching it through a screen on his arm, there was a beautiful moment when it felt _ right _. Quentin as a hero. This was amazing. His adrenaline was still pumping, maybe not as much as it would if he had actually been there fighting a monster with magic… but it was a close second.

He saved these kids. He stopped the monster from hurting them. The high was nothing like he’d ever felt before.

“You need to change,” Janice hissed, holding up the metal chest plates of his actual hero suit. She broke him out of his fantasy and he swallowed, immediately logging off.

The projection gave a salute to the kids before taking off into the sky.

Tess was glaring at her screen. “SHIELD is scouring the canals, around the first sighting. Frank’s tracked EDITH’s signals there.”

“Fury must have the glasses here,” Gutes stood up alert. “Will he give it to Peter even if the kid won’t want to join?”

“He won’t,” Quentin said, taking off the glass helmet. “But if he does, and Peter refuses to fight, Fury won’t let him go so easily.”

A crash echoed through the area. Everyone stopped, spinning in place to look over at Vivien who’d dropped her tablet.

Frank blinked, stepping forwards. “Vivi…?”

She gave a loud sob, burying her face in her hands. Quentin heart skipped a beat, already imagining the worst scenarios. Was it EDITH? Did someone use her to track them? Did SHIELD find out? Did Dimitri spill their secrets? Did Peter throw the glasses into the canal?

Dennis reached her first, catching her hands as Vivi cried, “Oh god! Look at them! Look at the bodies! We killed everyone!”

Quentin saw the images popping up on her cracked screen. She was looking at the follow-up reports of the attack in Ixtenco. The Mexican village was under surveillance and the news switched to showing bodies recovered from the debris. There were many under white sheets, a solemn story emerging from the destruction.

He clenched his jaw. “Vivi -”

“We killed them!” Vivi gasped, struggling to breathe now. Frank looked panicky. Dennis and Tess tried to get her to sit. Everyone else was frozen.

“Get her some water,” Tori shoved at Gutes. Quentin dragged a chair from Will’s side for her to sit down.

“Vivi,” Quentin kneeled down to look at her. “Focus on breathing. In and out. Come on, in and out!”

“We murdered them!” She said, eyes wet and red. “You don’t understand, we murdered people!”

“They died, Vivi. We weren’t aiming to kill them,” Quentin tried to explain. “That’s not murder. It’s sad, I get it -”

“Go to hell, Quentin!”

The cellar went deadly quiet.

Nobody was breathing, not even Quentin. He leaned back from her blotchy face. Her eyes widened as though she’d had a late realization of what she said. The shock and accusation in her eyes had resembled Marion so clearly that Quentin couldn’t speak.

It wasn’t murder. They had a job to do and there were people in the way. It was a sacrifice.

“We’ll get you to bed, Vivi,” Tess said, her voice unexpectedly soft. It broke through the tension.

Quentin opened his mouth but nothing came out. Tess shot him a quick warning look and helped her cousin out of the chair.

“Come on,” she whispered. Vivi gulped, avoiding everyone’s gaze.

He was still kneeling when he realized that the dampness of the floor was seeping into the material over his knees. With a crack of his bones, he stood up, still staring at his chair.

“Beckingham -”

Quentin held up a hand and immediately marched over to where Tess had led Vivi. There were a few tents set up in the dirt with sleeping bags in them. The team used them for quick power naps.

Tess had already tucked Vivi into one of the sleeping bags and zipped up the tent.

“Hey, I’ll just talk to her - ”

“Quentin,” Tess shook her head. “Give her some space.”

“I know, it’s… damn it, I need to meet Hill now, it’ll be a quick word with Vivi.”

“It won’t,” she insisted. “Look, she’s taking too much time in realizing what we’re doing here. Let her understand it and then talk to you.”

* * *

Head swimming, Quentin grabbed his costume and went into the darkness for privacy. The comfortable mocap suit came off and the layers of the hero came on. The undersuit was tight to his torso but kept his skin safe from the overbearing metal plates that made up his armor. The plates around his limbs were equally restrictive in movement, but the space around his elbow and knee meant he could actually walk. So, yay.

On his way out, Quentin told Tori, “There’s a good chance that once they detect the tremors around Prague, they’d want me to stay with them until that show’s over.”

Tori adjusted one of the plates over his arm. “Got it. We’re prepared for that, we can handle stuff without you, Q.”

Quentin didn’t joke. “I’m leaving you in charge.”

Tori looked a little surprised. “Tess is on point for most of this stuff. Isn’t she-”

“I know… it’s just. I think you can also handle the responsibility,” Quentin smiled. “Gutes has an eye on his side, the drone program and EDITH signals, Tess will track where SHIELD’s status is at all times… and I need you to execute the kill order on Fury and Hill.”

Tori’s smile faded. “Quentin, I - ”

“You know it has to be done,” Quentin placed his hands on her shoulders. “The team will already be in Prague by the time I get there with SHIELD. There’s only so much time I’ll have to escape them and get into the mocap suit to fight Molten Man, someone has to be ready with a drone to fire at both Fury and Hill when they come onto the scene.”

Tori pressed her lips together. “I don’t think I can do that. I can’t… can’t kill someone, Quentin. Two people? Why Hill too?”

“She isn’t some lackey, she’s just as smart and capable as him, probably even more dangerous because her patience is better.”

Quentin cupped her face. Tori froze, eyes bulging out. “But… I thought we needed them to know that Peter’s handing EDITH over to you.”

He narrowed his eyebrows, “Damn it. I know, I know. But I don’t want to wait any longer. They’re too good at this. We have too many open-ended lines here. The other agents saw me, they know what I’m capable of. They believe what we’re doing here. We can’t give Fury and Hill any more time to figure us out.”

Quentin winced, “This team, it’s the best, Tori. Working with all of you has been a dream, an amazing, adventurous dream. Once we get EDITH, we need to disappear. We’ll never be able to do that if we don’t take them out as soon as possible.”

Tori flinched. “I know.”

“I trust you,” Quentin went on, not looking away from her eyes. “I know some others won’t be able to do it, but I know you can because it has to be done. It’s either me or you and I can’t do it, it’s too much of a time-crunch.”

She swallowed, her eyes hardening. “I’ll do it.”

Quentin nodded, letting out a soft exhale. Tori put her arms around him, squeezing him close. He held her, tucking his chin over her shoulder. The embrace was awkward with the armor and lights but they held on for a bit. 

Originally, he would have made Tess second-in-command. She was best at multitasking and focusing on the most vital portions. But lately, she’d been giving their project a big stink eye. And after the scene with Vivi, Quentin didn’t want to have her oversee any more details than what was already assigned to her.

His heart was lighter when Quentin made his way out of the cellars and discreetly reached the first attack point.

Seeing the state of things really made him step back at first. The place was completely empty but water still ran over the ground, carrying flowers, jewelry, clothes, and bags. Debris from the bridge was scattered everywhere, several boats lay in pieces all over the canal. The day was just as bright as it was fifteen minutes ago, but the condition of it made Quentin stare at it, speechless for a moment. He swallowed, trying to calm himself.

A car drove towards him from the city, black body, clear windows. Dimitri was at the wheel.

Quentin wordless opened the door and sat in, struggling a bit at first to fit into the space with all his armor and cape.

They drove through some of the busted parts of the inner city before making a turn to a safer place. Quentin let out a soft breath, relaxing immensely. He had not been ready to see the destruction.

The sun was already setting, skies turning purple. Dimitri parked the car by a lamp post and stepped out. Quentin followed him as they made their way down cobbled stones to another part of Venice’s underground system.

Another of SHIELD’s teams was set up here. There were only a few systems spread about with people reading the screens for info. In the middle was a holographic table set up, replaying the events of the fight. Quentin stopped by it, watching his projection fly about, striking Hydro-Man with lasers, the volume was low, but even so, he could hear his own voice talking to Peter in that ridiculous mask.

“You okay?” Hill asked, sliding towards the table.

Quentin nodded slowly. “Been better, but this was a good one. Getting it away from the water helped.”

“Good job. We’ve got no more signs of disturbances from the canal or coastline,” Hill remarked. She ran her hand through the hologram, bringing up multiple images of the fight from different angles. Quentin guessed one of them was from Flash Thompson’s social media.

Amidst the articles of the fight from various news channel, was Peter’s ridiculous mask.

“Who’s this kid?” Quentin asked, focused on Peter’s flipping over the bridge in one move. Strong knees.

Hill narrowed her eyes. “An awful coincidence. Fury’s gone to bring him in.”

“Mutant?”

“Mutate. Peter Parker. He’s one of the Avengers. If he agrees to help us, you might get a teammate after all.”

Quentin gave a stiff nod, feeling his heart beats quicken. “One monster left. I’ll take any help now. How old is he?”

Hill hesitated before answering, “Seventeen in two months.”

He exhaled, “Well, shit.”

“Yeah,” she said, echoing his sentiment, except hers was far more veridical.

Night fell. One of the agents bought him food. Quentin gobbled it up gratefully, not having had time for a quick lunch. While he ate, he gave the details of how the monsters tended to attack and the team had pulled up the map for the Czech Republic and Morocco to check for tremors.

They found some signals in Prague and focused on that for now.

Quentin made a show of bending his head low over his bowl of spaghetti. “I don’t think we can wait. We might have to go to Prague now and set things up. Maybe this time, we can evacuate part of the city, direct the fight there. We got lucky today, no one died. Incredibly lucky.”

He got up to dispose of his empty bowl and turned back to the holo table. Hill moved towards her laptop by the wall when the room’s quiet mumblings suddenly fell through.

“Lose the mask,” Fury said, walking onto the site. “Everyone here’s seen you without it. You’d only be feigning anonymity and breathing through spandex for no good reason.”

Quentin forced himself to not jump. This was it. He kept his eyes on the projection in front of him as Fury introduced Peter to Hill and Dimitri.

“And this is Mr. Beck,” Fury continued. Quentin turned around, keeping his posture upright and preparing for Peter to meet his eyes.

Spider-Man stood at the end of the room, except he was unmasked. Peter Parker was looking right at him. Quentin spotted the case protecting the EDITH glasses, clutched in the kid’s hands along with his mask. 

The kid stared at him, surprise and awe filling his face. Quentin easily understood what Stark saw in him. Parker had more than potential and strength, he was moldable.

The first word that came from him confused Quentin.

“Mysterio?”

He walked forwards, “What?”

Peter looked embarrassed. “Sorry. It’s just what my friends have been calling you.”

Quentin thought of the news articles and smiled. “Well, you can call me Quentin.”

They had a handshake, Peter’s grip forming a steady curl around his palm. It was visceral, this meeting with him. After several months of spying on him, the kid was finally looking right at him.

“You handled yourself well out there today,” Quentin said, steadying his pulse. “Saw what you did with the tower. We could've used someone like you on my world.”

He turned away, unable to meet him in the eye. Peter looked too… open. Too ready to make friends. It was so clear, he wore his heart on his sleeve, his face was an open book. Fury was wrong, Peter ought to have kept the mask on if nobody should read his exact thoughts as they flitted across his face.

“Thanks!” Peter chirped, before going confused. “I'm sorry... your world?”

Fury crossed behind Peter to look at Hill’s system, “Oh, Mr. Beck is from Earth. Just not yours.” 

Peter whipped his head around, visibly growing excited. Quentin kept his calm demeanor. “There are multiple realities, Peter. This is Earth dimension 616. I'm from Earth-833.”

Peter surged forwards, “I'm sorry. You're saying there's a multiverse? I thought that was just theoretical. I mean, that completely changes how we understand the initial singularity. We're talking about an eternal inflation system. And how does that even work with all the quantum... it's insane!”

He turned to Fury and Hill, hoping for them to join him in his wonder. But the pair just looked back, Fury unimpressed, and Hill just… pitying.

“Sorry.” Peter breathed, liveliness fading and trying to grow serious. “It's really cool.”

Quentin saw his opening, “Don't ever apologize for being the smartest one in the room.”

Peter looked elated again.

Hill shook her head and changed the hologram on the table. The projection shifted from a yellow-lit topographical map of Venice to an artist’s rendering of a galaxy. Quentin looked up at the Milky Way and began to explain about the Elementals, a much-condensed version of the details he gave SHIELD the first time around. This time, lying was easier, since the listeners’ attentions were focused on the bright colors of the hologram.

“But with each battle they grew and got stronger,” Quentin’s voice dropped, emotion leaking through subtly. “I was part of the last battalion left trying to stop them. All we did was delay the inevitable.”

The hologram now displaying a large rotating image of the Earth was lighting up in red flames, the planet burning up. Peter’s face took on a very somber look.

Hill folded her arms, “Well, the Elementals are here now. Attacking the same coordinates. Our satellites confirm it.”

“So thank Mr. Beck for destroying the other three,” Fury added looking up from his seat. “There's only one left. Fire.”

Quentin turned to the table, catching his hand in a soft move. “The strongest of them all. The one that destroyed my Earth... It's the one that took my family.”

He didn’t have to look up to see Peter’s sympathy. “I'm sorry.”

Hill cracked a knuckle. “And it will be in Prague in approximately 48 hours.”

“We have one mission: kill it. You're coming with us.” Fury said.

His order didn’t seem to register with Peter at first. He looked at Quentin, then at Hill before asking, “I'm sorry. Did you say Prague?”

Here we go.

Quentin leaned back and watched Peter namedrop a hoard of other heroes to better take his place. Hill’s expression was unreadable and Fury’s retort of “Bitch, please. You’ve been to space!” was gold.

Peter now looked stressed (as one does bartering with Fury). “Sir, I really wanna help. I do. But if my aunt finds out I left my class trip, she's gonna kill me. And if I'm seen like this in Europe, after the Washington Monument, my whole class will figure out who I am, and then… And then the whole world will figure out who I am. And then, I'm done.”

Every agent seemed to be listening in on the conversation. It’s not every day a kid stands up to the commander of an entire organization.

Fury’s face went stony. “Okay. I understand.”

Wow, really?

Peter did a double-take as well, “I'm sorry, what?”

He apologized a lot.

Fury’s irritation was bleeding through now. “Why don't you get back before your teachers miss you and become suspicious. Dimitri. Take him back to the hotel, please.”

Even with the ‘please’, it was hard to ignore that there was no friction between the two of them. This was good news for Quentin and his team. If Fury was annoyed with Peter, he’d bank on Quentin… or rather Mysterio.”

He liked that name. It had the right vibe to it.

Peter either ignored Fury’s passive-aggressive tone or was blissfully unaware of it. “Thank you, Mr. Fury. And, uh... good luck.”

Quentin gave him a comforting smile. “See you, kid.”

Peter nodded. “Yeah, see ya.” He looked to Hill. “Bye, Ma'am.”

Hill had already turned back to her system, barely shooting back a, “Yeah.”

He could be imagining it, but Quentin wondered if she seemed more standoffish. She hadn’t been jumping for joy when Fury had gone to bring Peter into the situation, but now, she definitely did not look relaxed.

Quentin’s guess was right. Fury would not leave Peter, especially after he’d given him the EDITH glasses.

Fury sent Dimitri an assignment to rent an overnight bus while Hill told Quentin in no uncertain terms that he’d be traveling with them to Prague.

Quentin had expected this, so he went along with it for now.

* * *

The next morning, he was on a private jet with Hill and a few other agents. They were soaring above the clouds, passing through the scenic Alps and nearing their base in Prague. It was a short flight, barely fifty minutes. Just enough for a quick shut-eye.

Quentin was dressed in comfy sweats, legs stretched to the opposite seat facing him. He’d reclined his seat as far back as possible and had his eyes closed for the better part of the trip.

While asleep, he’d gotten enough nuggets of information from the agents’ conversation.

Fury had instructed Dimitri to drive Peter’s entire class from Venice to Prague. Well, no wonder Dimitri seemed pissed in the morning when he’d left. The group would be barely an hour into their journey now, crossing the mountains in Austria.

Quentin guessed that Dimitri would demand a bonus just for having to put up with the class for several hours in close quarters.

Their jet had just crossed a bit of turbulence when one of the agents gave a short yelp.

“Dude!” Another man chastised him, “What?!”

“Um… um, Agent Hill?” The first man stammered. Quentin kept his ears peeled, making sure to take deep, slow breaths.

“Yes? Out with it.”

“The EDITH satellite was just activated.”

Quentin’s heart fell. Did Peter finally log in to the system? Did he understand the extent of the power gifted in those glasses?

“Pull up our server, what does it say?” Hill barked and someone ran down the aisle.

“One of the drones was released. It’s heading to the Eastern Alps…”

“The Alps? What’s Dimitri’s status?”

“Shit, it’s heading right for the bus,” another agent remarked, voice going high with tension. “What the hell?”

Quentin didn’t dare move. Why would Peter call a drone to the bus? It couldn’t be an accident, could it? Peter wasn’t stupid or clumsy.

“It just fired a shot at the bus!”

Hill must have jumped out of her seat because Quentin heard her phone hit the ground. He had to freeze his limbs from flinching.

“It’s firing again!”

“Has someone hit the software? Is this interference from -”

“No, ma’am, but Parker’s credentials are in the system. His voice was confirmed, he’s the one who called the drone.”

Hill swore, now presumably dialing someone because she began to talk on her phone, sending units to follow up on the bus. A minute later, everything settled. Peter had been able to destabilize the drone and destroy it without alerting his class. No casualties.

Quentin stayed motionless for the rest of the flight until they began their descent.

Their new location was in an older part of the city. Prague was a beautiful sight, people going about their day, cheerful stores, excited globetrotters with selfie sticks, and lively crowds converging to the carnival site.

And it would be destroyed in about thirty hours or so.

Quentin had managed to excuse himself to the city, on the plea of searching the place to discern possible points of attack by the fire monster.

He changed into his costume, Mysterio’s suit, and took a turn on the street to hide from the cameras following. A lone drone appeared in an alleyway, building a full projection of Mysterio with the helmet on. It hid Quentin from view and displayed the projection taking flight over the city.

Quentin jogged to one of the abandoned buildings just a few blocks over. The basement was where his team was set-up. It was a large cavernous space that Cole had immediately dubbed ‘the Batcave’. The place had a tall bleacher set extending up on one side. The interior must have once been used to host indoor games. Construction bits such as concrete blocks and broken pillars were left behind in one corner.

It was a great place to even practice some of the projection sequences since people hardly ever ventured in this nook of the city.

The drone accompanying him allowed him access into the locked basement. His team already had most of the equipment ready and running.

Quentin couldn’t see Vivi in the mix.

Tori waved him over. “You’re just in time. We’re reviewing the fire sequence for the carnival now.”

“Molten Man, Tori,” Cole sighed. “We made all these cool creatures and now we’re not gonna name them? We have to give them an awesome name so people can remember.”

“True,” Quentin agreed, grinning. Janice helped him loosen up the armor. “Guess what people are calling me? Us?”

“What?” Janice asked, but Desiree piped up from behind the van to answer, “Mysterio! That’s what the Thompson kid posted on his feed. It’s catching.”

“Mysterio?” Gutes snorted. “Too on the nose for a mysterious hero.”

“It’s a mistranslation from Venice’s news channels. But it’s cool!”

Quentin shrugged, walking with Tori and Janice to stand behind Will as he began the Prague simulation. “Peter called me that.”

Tori’s jaw dropped. “You met him! What’s he like?”

“Was he like Spider-Man or Peter Parker?” Dennis asked. “I feel like they have contrasting personalities.”

Desiree squinted. “What? They’re the same person, Den.”

“Way too trusting,” Quentin answered. “Too curious, not an atom of suspicion.”

Maybe the team was placated by that. They didn’t ask any more questions once the final build of the Prague set-up played out. Quentin watched the scene, absolutely familiar with every single movement the monster did along with Mysterio’s actions. This would be the hardest sequence. Will and Frank would be monitoring how the possibilities played out while Peter would be interacting with the sequence. If Peter tried to shoot his webs at it, the drones should set them on fire (they ought to expect that since he did actually shoot a web at Hydro-Man).

“He’s got the stealth suit. We’ll be tracking him all the time,” Will said, bringing up a new window on one of his screens. It gave a live feed from the bus which showed Peter sitting in the first seat by himself. He was muttering into the EDITH glasses which kept lighting up in soft blue.

_ “The observation deck on the Eiffel Tower has an average of 25,000 visitors per day,” _ EDITH said in response to something Peter was wondering.

_ “Oh jeez,” _ Peter sighed, worried. _ “But we have tickets for it. We paid them in advance.” _

_ “All visitors have paid for entrance,” _ EDITH said, her cool voice filling Quentin’s ears with sudden rage. _ “If you’d like, I can cancel and refund all tickets scheduled for the night in question.” _

_ “Um, what?” _

EDITH went on to show some statistics on Peter’s glasses. _ “It will be close to a full moon on the date you visit Paris. An ideal setting for a romantic proclamation, Peter.” _

Cole leaned his head back in admiration. “Our boy’s persistent if nothing else.”

“Yeah?” Janice said, tutting. “If he cancels all those tickets, he’s no better than Stark in my book.”

_ “What? No, no! EDITH, do not cancel any tickets!” _ Peter hissed, eyes wide.

Janice looked mollified. “Okay. He’s not like Stark.”

_ “Request acknowledged,” _ EDITH said. _ “Would you rather be able to gain access to the highest point of the tower?” _

_ “Um… is that legal?” _

_ “For an appropriate fee, you can schedule a visit to the antenna deck that is barred to the general public. You can find privacy there,” she intoned, completely serious. _

Peter’s face turned an interesting shade of red. _ “We can’t just separate from the rest of the group, EDITH. That’s not cool. I gotta find something regular, but still awesome for MJ.” _

_ “There is a champagne bar near the top of the tower.” _

_ “We’re not legal.” _

_ “There are two restaurants, one on each level. _ ** _Le Jules Verne_ ** _ serves gourmet cuisine and has a soft ambiance, perfect for small talk.” _

_ “Oh, god,” _ Peter moaned. _ “EDITH, this all sounds like super-elite stuff. MJ won’t like that, and I don’t know anything about that! Can’t we find some nice space on the viewing deck?” _

_ “I can have a section of the deck reserved for both of you.” _

_ “No,” _ Peter shook his head, despondent. _ “No, that’s not right. Sorry, EDITH.” _

_ “It’s okay, Peter. Shall I look up a few discreet and more preferable locations?” _

_ “No, we aren’t staying that long in Paris, just overnight. Maybe I can give it to her once we’re bac - say… EDITH, what d’you think about Charles Bridge?” _

Quentin gritted his teeth and stood straight. It was bad enough that a kid got supreme control of the most terrifying surveillance system in the world, but the fact that he was using it for relationship advice was just so… massively underwhelming. It didn’t give him a full scale of what she was capable of. It didn’t show exactly how dangerous she was.

Janice and the others might think Peter was better than Stark, but that clearly wasn’t the case. Both had made the executive decision to venture into the superhero world, a world where they had strength and status. And just as Stark used Quentin’s revolutionary holographic software to build a therapeutic engine that was available only to one-percenters before being taken off the market entirely, Peter was using weaponized drone tech to look up potential dating endeavors.

They were far more similar than people gave them credit. It made Peter nearly as dangerous as Stark. It made Spider-Man a full-fledged enemy of the people.

It was Quentin’s duty to not allow that. As the true designer of holo tech, it was his responsibility to ensure that his technology was used by the right people for the right means. They had to do whatever it took to get EDITH out of Peter’s hands and transfer authority of it to Quentin.

It was his responsibility to _ be _ Mysterio.

* * *

“Parker!”

Quentin tilted his head back and held in a groan. Peter had zoned out, staring into the fireplace while Fury had been explaining their short-staffed plan to tackle the fire monster.

“Yes sir,” Peter said, snapping to attention.

“That thing is going to be here in a few hours. Are we boring you?” Fury’s clipped tone made them all shiver.

“He's not bored,” Quentin spoke. It was far too easy to side with Peter and back him up. “He's just thinking about how you kidnapped him.”

“He had obstacles. I removed them,” The man replied like a completely regular person would.

Hill turned from their screen, looking to change the subject. “They still won’t evacuate the city.”

“Idiots,” Fury sighed, before assuming the role of a stoic leader. “So what's the plan, Parker?”

Peter moved his hands as he spoke. “I will be in the cathedral tower, keeping watch for the fire monster. When that shows up, I will radio you guys. And then, uh, Mr. Beck and I -”

“My name is Mysterio,” Quentin interrupted, shooting Peter a sly look. A mark of camaraderie.

Peter grinned, “That's when Mysterio and I will move in.”

Quentin dropped to a more serious vibe, “Peter, listen to me. The best hope you have, the only hope… is to stop it here, now. No matter what the cost. Peter, maneuver it away from civilians if you can. But most importantly, keep it away from metal. If it gets too big, it'll be able to draw power from the earth's core. After that, there's no way to stop it. “

The room felt colder as he spoke. With everyone’s eyes and ears on him, Quentin felt like he was on a pedestal with people desperately looking to him for answers. 

Peter looked downright scared now, swallowing the emotion as much as he could. “Hey, man. My friends are here. And I can't help but think that we're putting them in danger.”

“You're worried about us hurting your friends?” Fury snapped, getting to his feet. “You, who called a drone strike on your own school tour bus? Stark gave you a multi-billion dollar A.R tactical intelligence system. And the first thing you do with it, is try to blow up your friends.”

Harsh.

“It's clear to me that you were not ready for this!”

Quentin blinked. Doubly harsh. Peter looked moments away from crying.

Hill shot a glare at Fury’s retreating back and Peter slipped out of the room, moving so fast and silently Quentin almost missed him.

He carefully exited the hall as well before tuning his com to get Will’s line. “Will?”

_ “Here, brother,” _ Will’s voice came on static. Quentin had to strain his ears a bit to hear him.

“Get me two units, we need a close-up projection. Priority 1 effects.”

Priority 1 was used holograms interacting directly with people, without the people realizing that it was an illusion. It had worked before with Fury and Hill, but now, they’d be going up against an enhanced being.

Peter was sitting on a stone parapet, legs dangling. His back was bent and he took a couple of sniffs staring at his cellphone. He made for a pitiful sight, especially since his phone screen wasn’t on. Quentin hid behind an alcove, his form cloaked by one drone while the other hovered just a dozen feet away from Peter to bring up a short sequence.

‘Mysterio’ flew up, helmet and all, to greet Peter. “Look, Fury asked me to come up here and see how you were doing. He just, he felt bad about snapping at you.”

Peter looked taken aback. “Really?”

Quentin frowned before remembering that his face was obscured by the glass bowl. “You guys do have sarcasm on this earth, right?”

Peter gave a self-deprecating chuckle. Ah man, this kid. 

“How you feelin'?”

“I didn't think I was gonna have to save the world this summer. I know that makes me sound like such a jerk. I just… I had this plan with this girl that I really like, and… Now it's all ruined.”

This was a heart-to-heart. He couldn’t mess this up. Peter needed someone in his corner and since all the other adults were shit, Quentin took up the mantle. He braced himself and directed the projection to sit on the wall not two feet from Peter. If the kid decided to pat him on the back or nudge him… 

Radiation. Don’t touch the radioactive guy, Pete.

He removed the helmet layer. Peter gave no indication that he saw something off about the face or the projection was completely made up. 

Quentin went ahead to expound his thoughts, “You're not a jerk for wanting a normal life, kid. It's a hard path. You see things, you do things… make choices, people look up to you… Even if you win a battle sometimes, they die.”

The look on Peter’s face, the sudden solemness, the weight on his shoulders… that was authentic. The burden he held in his body was something Quentin never thought he’d see in a kid.

_ I’m sorry for what Stark had done to you _ , Quentin thought. _ I’m here to fix it. I’ll take away the responsibility. _

“I like you, Peter. You're a good kid. There's a part of me that wants me to tell you, just… turn around, run away from all this. And then, there's another part of me that knows what we're about to fight. What's at stake. And I'm glad you're here.”

Peter nodded, “Me, too. But… ”

“You're worried about your friends.”

“Yeah. I just always feel like I'm putting them in danger.”

Quentin looked out to the city. It was a beautiful sight. “Look, just… Get them inside and keep them in a safe place, for just a few hours. It'll be alright.”

He imagined Peter taking EDITH’s help to sort something out. But Peter instead said, “It's really nice… to have somebody to talk to about superhero stuff, you know?”

Has nobody ever talked to this kid? Taught him to sort out priorities, let him off for a few days? Jesus.

“Anytime,” Quentin said softly. “And hey… We survive this, you'll have all summer to kill Brad.”

Peter smiled. Was this how Stark felt? Flying around behind armor, completely invincible, but also able to chat with kids with stars in their eyes just looking up to him for a guiding hand. No wonder he let it get to his head, the lure of power was incredible. Peter trusted him now. That was unshakable. Quentin almost felt bad for him but remembered that this was also relieving the pressure on Peter. It was the right thing to do.

* * *

Tori began to send a series of shockwaves through the ground, low enough to just be caught by the satellites.

Quentin was still in his hero’s suit since he’d be making an appearance by the end of it. Dennis was in the mocap suit, ready for any quick motion recording required for this sequence. It wouldn’t be necessary, but they were absolutely prepared.

The team was all set in their basement. Quentin stood behind Will, facing the three screens that gave the necessary readouts on the drones and the locations of all SHIELD personnel. Quentin had given a few suspected hotspots around the city, conveniently side-stepping the carnival.

One of the screens showed a blinking red light supplied by the tracker in Peter’s stealth suit. It showed him perched on top of the cathedral tower. Peter moved from side to side, exchanging the quieter view of the city for the boisterous carnival celebration in the clearing.

“Showtime, people,” Will called.

Tori’s machine let out a stronger blast. The moment it hit, Fury’s voice came up on the comms, _ “Energy spiking.” _

_ “We have seismic activity,” _ Hill said in tandem. 

Will began the illusion. Quentin caught sight of Michelle Jones standing in the middle of the carnival, right by the statue where they’d set up the reveal for Molten-Man. Nice.

Tendrils of lava burned through the ground, emerging out. It covered the statue before the cloaked drones destroyed the statue and displayed a tall and monstrous image of the fire creature.

People immediately began to scream and run. Stampedes occurred and Peter cried out, _ “Okay, he's here. Beck, are you ready? You know what to do.” _

Quentin responded, _ “On your lead, Spider-Man.” _

The monster leaped and smashed a car, Hulk style. They were very careful to avoid hitting any of the people. There was only so much you could control fire. If it burned the wrong way, someone would figure it was off.

The drones outfitted with flame throwers moved in synchronization with the projection. The monster’s roar and earth-shaking stomps rattled civilians’ teeth.

Mysterio landed in front of Molten-Man and conjured his runes. _ “You’re up, kid.” _

Peter swung into view, donned in a black outfit. Will had assured he would be in a degree of discomfort but Peter seemed to move like he was born in it. He zipped past the monster, stuck to a wall and webbed up a hydrant, yanking it off the ground. Mysterio let out a laser beam at its shoulder at the same time.

“Smoke,” Frank whispered and Will brought up a large enough smoke simulation to cover up the monster. Tess went on to cut the water supply while the drones made the monster shriek in pain from the water.

Molten-Man emerged from the smoke, furious. He aimed a right hook at Peter, despite Mysterio trying to hold him back. Peter leaped off the wall and landed on the carousel which was immediately grabbed by the monster.

_ “No, Beck! He’s got the carousel, he’s getting bigger!” _ Peter yelled.

Quentin gave a grunt of acknowledgment for him to hear.

“Perfect,” Will said. “Do we have a distraction?”

Desiree searched the screens, “Michelle ran off, but the other two, Ned and Betty Brant, are on the Ferris Wheel. They’re the only ones.”

Quentin gave them a thumbs up. 

The monster advanced to the wheel behind Peter. He shot his webs at it.

“Again,” Dennis mumbled in disbelief. “Seriously?”

One of the drones set fire to the webs which burnt all the way back to Peter’s hands. The monster made to smash Peter with both fists but failed as Mysterio flew in to bring up an smoky green, impenetrable force field to save Peter.

_ “Are you okay?” _ Quentin gasped and Peter gave a panicky nod, shaking from the tremors of the monster trying to bash the shield.

_ “On to Plan B?” _

_ “Yeah, we gotta hit him with something he can't absorb,” _ Peter shouted.

Quentin gave another grunt. “I go left, you go right. Now!”

The shield disappeared and Peter leaped out. Mysterio flew up high and the monster turned to Peter. The kid swung up above one of the attractions, climbing up the wall, no, _ running _up the wall, doing a long backflip and webbing up a pile of concrete blocks to swing them towards Molten-Man.

Quentin almost forgot his next lines.

“Shit, did you see that?” Cole gasped.

“He fights smart,” Janice mumbled.

_ “Okay, go now!” _ Peter called for Mysterio to blast the creature with another laser.

_ “That hurt him. Keep it coming.” _

The strategically placed concrete was catapulted by Peter, right into Molten-Man’s shoulder. Mysterio bombarded it with more beams.

“SHIELD crossed the bridge,” Tori whispered. She looked over to Quentin who gave her a quick nod.

It would have to be quick. A swift killing shot.

Tori swallowed and took control of one of the drones which broke away from the group, ready to intercept Fury and Hill’s car.

_ “Can’t let him get near the Ferris wheel!” _

_ “Okay, I’m on it!” _

“Diversion now,” Will informed, activating one of the monster’s prime attacks. Molten-Man used a blast of heat to backhand Peter away. It then roared and slammed a meaty fist into the ground. The earth shook and cracked, Tori’s EMP machine causing the ground to break apart.

The tremor reached the Ferris wheel and shook the entire structure. It tilted forwards, metal bars bending like putty. Quentin could hear Ned and Betty screaming. The monster looked up at the sounds and tried to get to them. Quentin directed Mysterio to fly between them and the monster, trying to force it back.

Peter ran towards the wheel to web up the structure.

Quentin kept his eyes on the screens, one showing Peter flying up to save his friends, another showing the monster stumbling back, and another showing SHIELD cars driving into the scene. Fury and Hill were in the lead. Tori sent the signal and her drone promptly shot unflinching bullets into the car’s windshield. 

Some of the team members recoiled. Quentin had no time to check if it worked because it was nearly time to make his appearance. Mysterio sent a larger blast at the monster which forced him back again.

_ “That’s it! Nice! Nice! You got him!” _ Peter encouraged.

Will had two drones tip the scaffolding on to the monster. It went downhill from there.

The monster gave an energized roar and threw away the blasts, growing taller, bigger, and more menacing. The place got hotter with lava flowing about. Mysterio gave another futile beam. _ “No, no, no!” _

Hill’s stunned voice came on the coms, _ “It’s too late.” _

As the monster pushed its arms around, growing hotter, Mysterio turned back to Peter with one ominous declaration. _ “Whatever happens…” _

His helmet off, he looked right at Peter, _ “I’m glad we met.” _

_ “Beck,” _ Peter cried. _ “What’re you doing?” _

Mysterio turned back to the monster with a determination only a hero could possess. _ “What I should’ve done last time.” _

Quentin took off the glass helmet and nodded at the others, “The bar should be ready in ten minutes.”

Two drones were with him as he ran out of the basement and up to one of the hidden corners of an empty street before slipping down a manhole. Will and the others knew to keep the projection running. Quentin ran past the quivering sewers, offhandedly wondering if the road would collapse on him. (Wow, what an end to Mysterio.)

No such thing happened and he made his way to the right manhole cover, marked by Gutes with white chalk. He was right below the carnival’s central point. Quentin covertly opened the cover and climbed out.

He was inside the projection now. The illusion was so thick, he couldn’t know anything happening outside, except for the sounds. 

The monster was letting out a pained roar. The red fiery colors were turning into radioactive green. Quentin covered the manhole, activated the smoke distillers under his suit, and laid down, trying to place his head in the most comfortable position over the broken ground.

He closed his eyes just in time for Molten-Man to explode, dispersing shimmering green particles all over the carnival sky.

The silence in the area was suddenly overbearing. The team had set some parts of the ground on fire and Quentin could feel the heat of one of the fires a little too close to his head. His com was quiet except for Peter’s grunts as he landed on the ground and ran towards him. 

Quentin felt Peter’s hands over his elbow, trying to turn him onto his back. Peter’s voice broke as he called, “Mr. Beck?”

He made the dramatic move to breathe heavily and open his eyes, moving his body slowly as though he ached all over. In a way, he did. There was soot and dust on his face and it smelt like many things were burning.

“Oh, thank god,” Peter whispered, the white lenses of his goggles going wide. Quentin raised his arm gingerly and Peter took it, heaving him up to his feet.

He sat on a block to catch his breath and saw Fury and Hill walk over to them. Quentin almost swore out loud. 

Shit, shit, shit!

He saw the cracked glass of their car and realized that the windshield must have been freakin’ missile proof if it was able to withstand close-range firing. They lost their chance here, in Prague at least.

There was always London.

Fury didn’t show any relief in the monster being destroyed. He just verified if that was the last one and Quentin confirmed.

“... not the last threat we’ll ever face,” Fury remarked. “We need to stay vigilant.”

_ Oh, man. I just killed a monster that nearly destroyed the planet. Can’t you chill for five minutes? _

“There's a void in this world for someone like you,” Fury continued. “Hill and I are going to Europol headquarters in Berlin tomorrow. You should join us.”

It sounded less like an invitation and more of an order. Quentin still got to his feet, minding his body and shook Fury’s hand, “Thank you. I just might take you up on that.”

Then Fury turned to Peter who stood there, goggles off, eyes like a frightened deer.

“You got gifts, Parker. But you didn't wanna be here.”

“Mr. Fury, I - ”

“I'd love to have you in Berlin, too. But you've got to decide whether you're going to step up, or not. Stark chose you. He made you an Avenger. I need that. The world needs that. Maybe Stark was wrong. Was he? The choice is yours.”

Fury clearly didn’t care about throwing his weight around and making people cry. Quentin saw Peter’s eyes water, turning red.

He was broken. Torn between the options of choosing to be a small-time hero who kept the streets safe, and between the next Iron Man, someone to be the face-off when it came to the next global problem.

SHIELD agents walked away and Quentin stepped up, placing a hand on Peter’s stiff shoulder. “Come on, let’s get a drink.”

* * *

The bar was probably the pinnacle of their achievements. Multiple people were illusions of his own team in disguises, shot weeks ago. Gutes was the barman, impersonating Sam Malone from _ Cheers _, serving Janice sitting in a booth. Will was by the beer tap. Tori sat opposite the illusion of a person. Cole and Doug were at a booth away in the corner. Desiree was in a traditional Czech dress, seated by the door, humming to herself. The rest were spread out, mixing with the illusions.

Fury had basically laid out the groundwork. Even with the bright lemonade, Peter looked like a forty-year-old something hard on his luck and drinking away his fears.

Everything in their bar was made to direct Peter’s way of thinking. One of the posters on the wall was an ancient advert for sunglasses. The overhead music was from The Jam. _ Town Called Malice _ was perfect for Peter’s mood. It was a cheerful jam which was why the lyrics would catch you off guard.

_ Better stop dreaming of a quiet life _ _  
_ _ ‘Cos it’s the one we’ll never know. _ _  
_ _ And stop apologizing for the things you’ve never done... _ _  
  
_

Quentin took a sip of his beer, the bottle cool in his hand. The drink was real, just in case, Peter’s senses were sensitive enough to figure out if Quentin was drinking water. Luckily, he wasn’t a lightweight.

“Hey, we gotta celebrate. You did something good tonight,” Quentin softly urged him.

“Fury was right,” Peter said, clearly in his own thoughts. His voice was just shy from cracking. “Tony did a lot for me, so… I owe it to him, to everybody.”

Quentin turned to face him, giving a small frown, “Do you?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, trying to convince himself. “I mean, Mr. Stark, gave me a chance to be more. He wanted me to be better than him. And Fury just wants me to live up to that.”

God, this kid’s heart had been put through a blender. 

“What do _ you _ want, Peter?”

Peter looked at him, confused. “What do you mean?”

Quentin shrugged and simply asked again, “What do you want?”

“I don't know,” it was more of a mumble.

_ You do know, Peter. And I’m going to make you say it. _

“What do you want? You, Peter Parker, now. I know you're thinking about it - ”

“I wanna go on my trip,” Peter burst out. “Right? I wanna go back on my trip, with my friends. And, go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, with the girl who I really like, and tell her how I feel… ”

Spidey, the romantic.

Peter raised his hands, “... give her a kiss!”

Quentin gave him a knowing grin. Spidey, the hormonal romantic.

“Shut up, man,” Peter chuckled.

“You’re not gonna do that, are ya?” Quentin said, turning back to the bar and setting his bottle down to give Desiree the signal. Peter had his back turned to her, so he didn’t notice her carefully sit up, alert.

“No, I can't,” Peter sighed.

“Why not?!”

“Because I have too much responsibility,” he said, as Desiree stood up, moved towards him and slipped out the EDITH glasses that were sticking out of his pocket with her left hand, switching it to her right before saying in the sweetest voice, “Yours?”

Peter almost jumped. He stared at her in surprise before looking at the glasses. “Oh my god, thank you so much!”

He took them and Desiree walked away to her seat. Job perfectly done.

“What are those?” Quentin asked, before giving a shocked, “Are those the…”

Peter nodded, wiping the lenses, “EDITH glasses, yeah.”

“It was on the floor?”

Peter swallowed looking up at him before turning to stare at his lap, ashamed.

Quickly recovering, Quentin said, “Try them on. Let's see what they look like.”

The kid looked encouraged, sliding the glasses onto his face. Quentin tilted his head. The frames were just a smidge too large for him. The glasses themselves didn’t look anything flamboyant, but knowing all the bells and whistles attached to it, Quentin thought it was too ostentatious for Peter.

It was a bejeweled crown and Peter wasn’t a good fit for it.

“I actually really like them,” Peter said, defensive.

“Can I be completely honest with you?”

“Please!”

“They look really stupid. But maybe there’s a contact lens version?”

Peter swiped the glasses off his face like he couldn’t bear to wear them any longer. “You try ‘em on.”

Quentin had to brace his entire body to not just leap off the seat. “No, come on!”

“Try ‘em on!”

“I dun wanna try ‘em -”

“Try ‘em on!” Peter laughed, raising the glasses again. Quentin stopped refusing fixed Peter with an exasperated look.

He took the glasses and moved it awkwardly like he’d never seen how glasses work. Slipping them on made him feel incredible. He was on the edge of a cliff, wings spread out, ready to soar. His skin grew hot just the thought of limitless power that sat in the lenses.

Quentin looked at Peter with a slight jerk of his head. He gave the kid a little smirk, his shoulders tilted to rest an elbow on the table, a picture of casual power and underlying arrogance. 

Maybe he was being less subtle with the Stark stance, but Peter’s smile fell as he just gawked at Quentin.

“What’re you thinking?” He asked watching the gears in the kid’s head turn.

Peter looked away and mumbled something before saying it louder.

“What?” Quentin asked, still partially basking in the weight of the glasses.

“Mr. Stark left me a message with those glasses.  _ For the next Tony Stark, I trust you _ .”

“I’m still not following. How many lemonades did you have?”

Peter grew serious. “He knew every mistake I ever made, okay? So, he must have known I was not ready for something like this.”

Quentin leaned back. “Why would he give it to you?”

“‘Cause maybe he didn’t trust me to have it. He just trusted me to pick who should!”

The amount of mistrust Peter had about his own strengths was unbelievable. Quentin almost couldn’t respond to that. Did Peter really see it like that? That he was so inexperienced and fallible that all the adults in his life made him believe that he was not worth the tiniest amount of trust placed by the most powerful one of them all?

Quentin had seen Fury’s treatment of Peter. He’d found out how May Parker packed her nephew’s suit without seemingly telling him. He’d seen how the kid’s own friends lived in their bubbles, unwilling to venture outside to understand reality that was sharp as a guillotine blade heading for Peter’s neck.

“It makes so much more sense,” Peter continued in the same breath, trying to persuade Quentin to see it his way. “He always knew I would do what’s right. And he’s not gonna give ‘em to Fury because Fury would just give himself EDITH!”

Quentin huffed. “You’re probably right about that.”

“Right?” Peter’s eyes were shining now. “So, the world needs the next Iron Man. And it’s not gonna be me, I mean. I’m a sixteen-year-old kid from Queens. It needs to be an adult with some experience and that’s good like Tony Stark, like you!”

Peter just compared him to Stark. Quentin held down the rage that bubbled in his throat, chasing away the euphoria of wearing the glasses. But the anger cleared his head and gave him his lines to say.

“No, Peter, come on!” He took off the glasses, already feeling vulnerable without them.

Peter didn’t say anything to him, but just took the glasses. Quentin’s heart stuttered and he prayed that Peter would swallow the bait that he took. This was going better than they’d hoped, they just needed to see it through till the end.

The kid put on the glasses and carefully turned away like he was contrite to even face Quentin with them on.

“Hello, EDITH?” he said and the glasses lit up in a soft blue glow as the AI responded, “ _ Hello, Peter. _ ”

“Yeah, umm. I’d like to transfer your control over to Quentin Beck?”

Quentin almost felt everyone in the bar flinch in exhilaration. It was a miracle that Peter didn’t catch anyone’s excitement.

“Peter, what’re you doing?” He asked in disbelief.

“Doing the right thing,” Peter said as EDITH responded, “ _ Any transfer would require confirmation. _ ”

Quentin coughed out a laugh. “Stark gave  _ you  _ the glasses!”

“Stark gave me a  _ choice _ !” Peter retorted, which was the most angry sentiment Quentin had ever seen of Peter in the past litany of months. Peter wasn’t one to snap at anyone. Quentin knew he couldn’t push it too much.

“It’s my choice to make, okay? And I’m gonna make it. Look, you’re a soldier, a leader. You stopped the Elementals, you saved my life, you saved the world! Okay? He’d want you to have them!”

Quentin just stayed quiet after that outburst. Peter had managed to convince himself of the very thing Quentin was building up to. Peter believed it wholeheartedly. 

“ _ Waiting for confirmation. _ ”

“Confirm,” Peter muttered, finally making one decision that might have felt adult-like to him. Quentin just watched him take off the glasses and offer them to him. This final exchange would be etched in his brain forever.

Peter was solemn as he said, “Welcome to the Avengers.”

He breathed out slow and took the glasses to slip them on again, this time with more of Alternate Dimension!Beck rather than Stark impersonator.

Peter shrugged, trying to be nice. “They look good on you.”

“Thank you. It’s an honor,” Quentin said and they shook hands. It was almost done.

“Yeah,” Peter nodded and picked up his backpack. “Mr. Stark would’ve really liked you.”

He wisely chose not to respond to that. “Where’re you headed?”

Peter stood with a shred of confidence that came with making a life-changing decision. “I’m gonna find MJ.”

“Good luck, kid. I’d give you a fifty-fifty chance. You’re pretty awkward, so…”

Peter laughed. “Yeah… see you later, man.”

Never.

“See ya!”

Peter walked out the door and gave a final smile through the dirty window before walking away. The illusion had already started to break up. Quentin watched as the holographic designs and details slowly changed into blue voxels before disappearing. The pictures on the wall, the extra locals, the bottles of booze on the stand, the peeling paint of the walls, the odd chandelier, and the bar itself changed and distorted away, revealing what was left of an abandoned bar house that hadn’t been open in years.

Quentin held his hands, waiting for Peter to walk out of his hearing range. He counted the seconds in his head as the bar dissolved back into its state of disuse.

It took just a few seconds for everything, including Mysterio, interdimensional warrior, to fade away. Then Quentin announced, “See, that wasn’t so hard?”

The team erupted in cheers. Quentin burst out laughing because the punchline was that nobody had worked harder than them and now, they were toiling for their fruits.

Will and Tori hugged, Gutes and Janice whooped, Cole was jumping for joy, Dennis and Desiree applauded, and Quentin clapped his hands once before yelling, “Somebody get this  _ stupid  _ costume off of me!”

The mood change of the group was instantaneous. The bar scene had a sweet and sour ambiance of drunk and meek people, but now, everyone was charged up with their victory. Quentin immediately handed the EDITH glasses to Janice.

“Okay, we got EDITH. Get these connected to our system.”

Janice handed the glasses to Will who had his laptop already out, logged in for connection. But Gutes had set three bottles of cheap champagne on the table and was pouring everyone glasses full of the bubbling liquid.

“Toast!” Doug shouted, grabbing a full bottle for himself.

“Yeah, come on, Beckingham!”

“Toast!” Tori cheered and everyone followed her lead. “Toast! Toast! Toast!”

Quentin had to curb his enthusiasm. “No, this is a big win, but we got a lotta work to do!”

“Toast!” Janice joined in. Quentin almost rolled his eyes when he noticed that even though Frank was there in the back with his own glass of champagne, Tess and Vivi were nowhere to be seen.

Quentin swallowed a sudden surge of anger and instead used that energy to leap up onto the bar to yell, “Okay, toast! Give me that, Doug!”

He swiped up Doug’s open bottle and began. “To the man that brought us all together. Our former boss, Tony Stark.”

“Boo!” Will called.

“The jester king!” Quentin shook his head. “Literally wrapped, in wealth and technology that he was unfit to wield.

Like the holographic system I designed. A revolutionary breakthrough, with limitless applications, that Tony turned

into a self-therapy machine, and renamed…”

He had a flash of memory, taking him back to the day of the MIT announcement and the September Grant Foundation. That had been the most humiliating moment of his life even though Quentin had once been bodily thrown from the Stark Industries Manhattan office.

Quentin had to work to keep the smile on his face. “He renamed my life's work,  _ BARF _ . I told him that it was a mistake. That my technology can change the world. And then… He fired me. Said I was... unstable.”

He gritted his teeth and raised his bottle, “To Tony!”

“To Tony!” Everyone jeered.

“Next, to William!” Quentin turned to Will and said, “The integration of my illusion tech, with your weaponized drones, was brilliant. Powerful illusions, real damage, worked like a charm. And it’s just the beginning.”

Will inclined his head, “Thank you, brother.”

Quentin pointed to Gutes next, “To Guterman.”

“To Guterman!” The others said and Gutes grinned. 

“The story you created of a soldier from another earth named Quentin fighting space monsters in Europe, is totally ridiculous! And apparently exactly the kind of thing people will believe right now. I mean, everybody bought it!”

Gutes bowed and got claps on his back, because really, that story is truly unbelievable and yet… and yet, in the age when real monsters do attack and destroy civilizations, who wouldn’t agree to incredible stories such as Mysterio?

“To Victoria!” Quentin called.

Cheers came up. “To Victoria!” 

Tori beamed up at him and Quentin’s breath was stolen away. He had to suck in a gulp of air to say, “Staging electromagnetic pulses at each attack sites with Fury's own satellites would confirm our lies? Inspired idea.”

“To Janice!”

“Yeah, Janice!”

After Tony died, she was the one who discovered that EDITH was being handed over not to us, not to the Defense Department, but to a child. Thank you!”

“To Janice!” Gutes called and everyone followed.

“To the rest of you, Tony Stark is gone. There is a window of opportunity and someone will step up. But these days, you can be the smartest guy in the room, the most qualified, and no one cares. Unless you're flying around with a cape, or shooting lasers from your hands, no one will even listen.”

He gave them a maniacal grin. “Well, I've got a cape. And lasers. With our technology, and with EDITH, Mysterio will be the greatest hero on Earth! And everyone will listen. Not to a boozey man-child. No! Not, to a hormonal teenager. No! To me! And, to my very wealthy crew. To us.”

“To us!” 

“To Mysterio!”

“To Mysterio!” They chimed.

Ooh, and can’t forget. “To Peter Parker!”

“To Peter Parker!” Everyone laughed, downing their drinks.

Quentin lowered his bottle. “Poor kid. Let's get to work!”

* * *

The rousing speech was just what Quentin needed to tamp down his irritation with Tess. The alcohol in his system gave him enough buzz to face her head on, ready to interrogate why on earth she wasn’t in the bar when that was where she was supposed to be. 

Tess was in one of the dimly lit backrooms. Her face was bright from the light coming from her cellphone screen. She was so busy typing something, her thumbs flying over the screen that Quentin got right up to her face before she realized he was in the room with her.

“We got EDITH,” he said, watching as she fumbled to lower her cell and place it out of sight.

“That’s great!” Tess replied, breathless. “Yeah, Cole texted. We’re in the next phase… Will and Dennis are rerouting all signals -”

“Where were you?”

She stopped abruptly. “Vivi wasn’t feeling well. I stayed with her and kept an eye on the SHIELD clean up.”

“Any problems?”

“Nope, we’re good.”

Quentin nodded, trying to settle his nerves. Tess eyed him warily, like she knew he was pissed. It was probably very obvious because she sighed and said, “Okay, I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”

He cackled. “ _ You’ve _ got a bone to pick with  _ me _ ?!”

She sneered. “Don’t act like this is the smoothest running operation in the world, Beck. We’ve done so many horrible things. Did you know that four civilians are in the hospital because of our projection? They’re all critical and only one of them has any hope of surviving!”

Quentin swallowed. “They were hurt in the stampede, not by the drones. That’s not on us.”

She stared at him, bewildered. “Beck! Yes, it’s our fault! We orchestrated the whole thing! The events we created led to the stampede! We put those people in the hospital and gave who knows how many others severe trauma! Just like the Cyclone, just like Hydro-Man! You cannot push the blame away!”

“Stark always pushed the blame away,” Quentin snapped. “No one gave him crap for that.”

“Now you wanna bring up Stark?” Tess laughed. “After your fancy speech. Yeah, I heard that. You hated that he used Holo tech to work it into a therapy machine. But I remember you working with all those doctors to enable it!”

“It’s not like I had a choice then! I had actual ideas for what we could use Holo tech for exactly, and he just steamrolled over everything I created!”

Tess glared at him. “How is it that when he messes up, you get to blame him, but when you mess up, you  _ still  _ to blame him?”

“Stark never got enough blame,” Quentin hissed. “After everything that’s happened, after all those decades of weapons, the war on terror was something he funded! People choose to not remember that! Every problem that came up had something to do with him, but when I pointed it out, when I got the proof Potts needed to put him away, she chose to turn a blind eye. They’re all up there on Olympus pretending to be Gods while crushing the rest of us like worms!”

“Seriously!” Tess demanded. “Can’t you hear what you’re saying?!”

“We got EDITH,” Quentin stepped closer to her as she stepped back in alarm. “We got EDITH, Tess! Now we can take down Olympus! Stark was never a God and we have the means to prove it to everyone! That’s our goal!”

Tess gritted her teeth. “Stark wasn’t the only one with a God-complex.”

He blinked. “What? You think I’m crazy?”

“You claim to expose Stark for what he is, but you don’t even know what you’re turning into!” Tess’s words were harsh and she was leaving no stone unturned. “You’ve changed, Beck. I remember a man who cared about people around him, who helped his team become better while he grew. But this… this obsession with Stark changed you. Yeah, we’ve all have some sucky years, Beck, but you just turned into something I don’t even recognize!”

Quentin stepped away from her, heart pounding. He was sweating through his undersuit. What was Tess saying?

“Have you ever heard of Scott Lang?”

Tess’s eyes were burning into his. She had the same look Marion had had, just minutes before Quentin had… before…

“Who?”

“Scott Lang,” Tess repeated, impatient. “He was an employee of Vista Corp. They were embezzling millions from their clients and he blew the whistle. Hacked their system, leaked the evidence on the net for everyone to see.”

The story was vaguely familiar. Quentin couldn’t remember reading about it, but it was definitely something he’d once heard about. The Vista scandal had torpedoed the entire company and sent them into loss as their shares lost all the profits from the hack.

“He went to jail for that,” Quentin mumbled. “Is that what you prefer? That I go to jail for blowing the whistle on Stark? I nearly did, I lost everything, my career, my dreams -”

“Scott Lang didn’t hurt anybody,” Tess stammered, tears breaking out in anger. “He never killed anyone. He’s a hero, not because of super powers or flashy lasers or a cape, but because he attacked the company and not the people. He had a sentence of three years and then he got out. Was even on house arrest for something. Yeah, that part of his life was shitty, but he still did it not for himself! He did it for everyone.”

Quentin tried to get his breathing in control. This was bullshit. Tess was way out of line.

“You’re not Scott Lang, Quentin,” she whispered. “You are Tony Stark in a different way but with worse intentions. You don’t care about the people, you don’t care that the drone system would target people. What you do care, is that Stark never got the blame for it. And in your head, that means you deserve EDITH and none of the blame for killing and hurting all the people we attacked!”

He clenched his fists and swore, “You’re such a bitch!”

Tess winced. “So are you. We’re all murderers, we’re all bitches. Vivi, Frank, and I are done.”

The slowly growing migraine in his head reached a peak. Quentin wanted to scream and wring Tess’s neck. He wanted to hit something so badly, wanted to make the shrieking noise silent by…

His gun was hidden in his sleeping bag, stowed away in the team’s luggage cases. He could just go get it, shoot Tess, this time in the head -

“You won’t find us,” Tess murmured, stumbling back and heading for the door. She was shaking. Could she see the fury behind his eyes?

“You think I won’t?” he threatened. “You seem to forget, Tess. I have EDITH. You can’t hide from me unless you find a way to get off the planet.”

Tess’s jaw jutted out in defiance. “You’re the one who’s forgetting, Quentin. We aren’t your minions. You’d never have gotten this far without all of us. And you certainly won’t find me because I’ll make sure of it.”

She made for the door, darting to the side. Quentin leaped for her, his mind unhelpfully supplying a flashback of when he fought Marion who’d tried to escape.

But Tess was fiercer and expected that he’d want to stop her. She use the edge of her cellphone to jab into his throat with all her force. The firm corner smashed into his Adam’s apple and Quentin choked, clutching his throat. There was blinding pain working through his body like electricity. He fell to his knees, gasping for breath and Tess slammed a solid boot into his gut.

Quentin doubled over, eyes watering, fingers scratching over his neck. Tess ran to the door and got through.

He couldn’t gather all his wits fast enough to stop her. Quentin had taken off the access point to the drones and couldn’t yell for help without exacerbating his larynx.

This was bad. Tess was smart as hell, she knew how Quentin thought, how he worked. Frank was good with any kind of server, he could conceal them, get them out of the country easily.

But Vivi was the real problem. She’d been working on EDITH’s mainframe for months, she knew how the AI performed, she knew exactly how the drones functioned. She could leave backdoors in their system and disable any locating command Quentin could think of. She was smart enough to destroy everything Quentin built.

He knew it was a mistake to let Tess include her cousins into this. That had given her a serious advantage. As good of a leader he was, Vivi and Frank would side with Tess than him, especially after Vivi had made it clear that she was not okay with killing people. And Frank would definitely not betray his twin and cousin.

Tess had a stronghold with just two people. Quentin’s team was cut down, having lost three vital chess pieces.

* * *

He emerged from the backroom, finally having managed to stand on his feet. His stomach hurt from the blow of Tess’s kick and his throat was tender. He made no sound, moving towards the bathrooms where he washed his face to make it look like he was absolutely fine.

He could not let the team realize what’d happened.

Quentin headed straight for their luggage, zipped open his sleeping bag to pocket his gun. If anyone else tried to defect… well, Quentin was very clear on his path. He wouldn’t let that happen.

He went back to the basement where Will and Desiree were working on EDITH’s programming. She had changed out of her outfit and was in regular clothes. The rest of the team were scattered around the floor, watching the drone fleet as their illusion codes were updated to EDITH.

He felt relieved when he saw the EDITH glasses connected to Desiree’s PC. They still had it.

“How far along are we?” Quentin asked, his voice rasping.

Desiree and Will looked up, surprised. “Um… are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he waved his hand, dismissing the problem. “Give me the laptop.”

Desiree handed over her PC and the glasses to Quentin while Will explained, “We got the schematic of the satellite, Dennis is working on that now. I’ve nearly gotten all the drones hooked up to our program, but they’ll only be activated on your command.”

“And uh…”, Desiree shrugged awkwardly, not meeting Quentin’s eyes. His heart palpitated at the thought of them facing another problem.

“Peter didn’t  _ transfer  _ control to you. He gave you admin access, but that’s it. EDITH still has his biometrics on file. I couldn’t remove it.”

Quentin’s shoulders dropped. “It must be a fail-safe. We’ll have to get into some of the finer subroutines, but for now, focus on the projection uploads. Let me know when that’s done.”

“Vivi can disable Peter’s access,” Will nodded, not looking too concerned. 

Quentin swallowed. “Has she seen the coding?” He asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Yeah, she sat with me for a bit to check the update links… Then she took her PC to clean out some of the lines and get our codes into place.”

Will and Desiree didn’t look nervous or upset. They focused on the screen in front of them and Quentin stared down at the laptop in his hands. Vivi must have already placed her backdoors in EDITH. All Quentin could do was ensure that she didn’t enable a temporary drone shut down during the final illusion fight scheduled in London, but beyond that…

Really, he should be glad that she hadn’t been able to take the glasses. That would have been a serious disadvantage, even if she didn’t have access.

Quentin tried using the city’s cameras to locate Tess, Vivi, and Frank, but the data was already wiped. No photo markers could catch them. He’d already seen that their bags were missing from the rest of the luggage. How they escaped from the building without alerting the others, Quentin didn’t know.

When Dennis got full access to EDITH’s satellite, Quentin went back to put on the mocap suit and try to psyche himself up for the London demo. 

It’d be fine. He locked Vivi’s prints out of the system for good. She wouldn’t be able to get back in without alerting him, even if she used her backdoors. Any unexplained command or change in drone sequence would send an alarm straight to his access point. Quentin was ready.

Desiree stretched her legs on one of the lower benches while Will stayed somewhere in the middle, fifteen feet from the ground. His post from the middle of the bleachers gave him a good vantage point of how the drones moved about.

Gutes broke out another bottle of champagne as the drones flew around the basement, for the first time under EDITH’s codes.

“How’s our monster looking?” Janice asked and Quentin brought up their fifth villain. The London attack would be comprised of all four elements, merged into one horrific creature. They needed a big enough attack that it could cause widespread damage, far away enough, even to send debris right into SHIELD’s London base where Fury and Hill would be stationed later.

He was determined to tie up all loose ends before going after Tess. He’d get her, but it would just take a while. 

“Start this movement from a higher point,” Quentin directed and Will switched up one of the drones to hover closer to the ceiling. They couldn’t see the unit itself, but the illusion in front of them warped and turned larger, slightly elongated by a steep incline.

“No, that’s too high up. Bring it to twenty feet and arrange the rest of them into descending layers.”

Will brought the illusion down to enlarge it given the space of the basement. “Better, keep to this ratio for the whole sequence. Let’s add the effects.”

  
  


Lightning and smoke emerged from the illusion. Quentin controlled the simulation of Mysterio, brought up by a single drone. They started the sequence again nd Quentin watched everything with a careful eye, trying to target all his frustration at making sure the London attack would go perfectly. SHIELD had no idea what would happen and that was a silver lining.

_ What if Tess managed to contact Fury? _

Quentin clamped down on his terror. That stray thought sounded as though Marion whispered it into his ear.

_ That’s why I’m going to kill him. That’s why I’m creating one final fight before we disappear. _

The image played out in front of him. Mysterio flew about, cape fluttering magnificently through the prop pillars set up for the scene. He blasted green lasers at the hybrid monster’s weak spots. Quentin couldn’t find enough satisfaction from the motion so he called out, “Pause.”

The projection continued. Quentin sighed and said louder, “Pause!”

Will jumped up from looking at his phone. He immediately put everything on hold, and Mysterio and the monster froze. “Sorry!”

Quentin grimaced at the scene. This could have a better flow. “Yeah, uh, can you just fast-forward to the end?”

“Yeah,” Will said, arranging a timelapse. “Standby.”

The visual flashed forward to the climax. Quentin walked towards it, noting the number of hits Mysterio took and delivered. “Right. Fly, fly, fly... Zap, zap, zap... Pause.”

The hybrid Elemental froze again and Quentin squinted at the illusion. “I'm not in love with this choreography, but it'll do. Kill image. Decloak drones.”

The illusion disappeared leaving seemingly empty space. Then, several drones appeared out of thin air when the cloaking devices deactivated.

Quentin hummed, “Right, weapons?

WIll looked surprised, “You wanna weaponize them?”

“Yup.”

“Weapons only. Standby.”

The drones fly around the fake pillars in the lot, ‘firing’ at them as they flew by.

Will looked pleased, “Nice.”

Quentin exhaled. Either he was just out of it, or this sequence didn’t fit what he’d had in mind. “Stop. Something... I don't know what it is. It's something... Just... You know what? Double the damage, and then run it again.”

Will hesitated. “You want me to double it up?”

Quentin knew that Will was the cautious but lax kind of person. He’d known this for years, but sometimes it just got on his nerves. Will ought to understand by now that Quentin knew what he was doing.

Will acquiesced, “Alright. Cover your ears.”

The drones were now hidden under the full image of the fight again. The sequence played out with a proper weight to the attack as the creature punched the pillars to pieces. Then, the holographic Mysterio fired a laser at it blasting it into wisps.

It had the right climatic punch to it and Qunetin whooped, “Good! That's good.”

Will gave a double thumbs up and Quentin roled his neck to get a crick out. “We're on schedule?”

“Oh, yeah. Uploading software hack to EDITH network, where drones will be able to create an event big enough to cover an entire city.”

“Right, well done,” Quentin walked towards his team. “Make sure every drone is weapons hot. We need maximum damage.”

Gutes gulped his champagne. He’d better not end up with a massive hangover, the fight was due tomorrow. “That's gonna cause a lot of casualties.”

“Oh, yeah. More casualties, more coverage. I gotta cut through the static. London is a beautiful city and it will suffer, but they can rebuild.”

He thought of Tess’s words, her sharp tone hitting him in the gut like a kick. “If I'm gonna be the next Iron Man, I need to save the world from an Avengers-level threat.”

Quentin was the next Iron Man, Tess. Not another Tony Stark.

“But, when its new savior descends…” he said, letting the projection of Mysterio envelope him perfectly. His voice was distorted as though there really was a glass helmet around his head. “...all those casualties will be forgotten.”

He removed the helmet and looked to his actual supersuit, “Janice, you'll be in position with a quick change armor. For the victory lap.”

Janice stood up with a jerk, probably having zoned out from the drinks. “Of course. Do you want to try…”

“No, no. That's…” Quentin’s state of relief from the perfect simulation disappeared when the projection of his arm wavered, revealing the mocap suit for a moment.

“What's going on with my hand?” He asked, dumbfounded. “Why is that happening?”

“Oh, one of the drones that came back from the plaza was missing a projector. It's fine.” 

Will said that so casually as though one projector arm wouldn’t dismantle their entire operation. As though they weren’t doing something with ridiculously high stakes. Quentin’s pulse rose along with his blood pressure.

“Wait, and you're... You're telling me this, now?”

He tapped on his access point to bring up the status of every drone in active use. The guilty unit popped up in red and Quentin just gawked at the broken state of it. SHIELD had already cleaned up the crime scene of Molten Man. What if one of the agents found the drone piece?

“It's one drone,” Will insisted. “The image will be perfect, I promise.”

It wasn’t about the damn image!

“That projector is evidence!” Quentin breathed out. “It's going to tell people what we're doing and how we're doing it.”

He tried to grin at his team to not alarm them, but something just burst through his sensibilities and Quentin just lost control of his temper. “I am trying to fool seven billion people here, including  _ Nick Fury _ , who happens to be the most paranoid and most dangerous person on the planet! And if he catches on before I've killed him, then  _ he will put a bullet in my head _ . And nobody wants a bullet in their head. Right?”

He brought the drones to station against his team. They suddenly looked terrified as though it was finally hitting them that this was a bad situation.

“Right?!” he shouted, glaring up at Will who froze when lasers were aimed at his head.

The basement was quiet but his head was not. Blood roared in his ears and Marion was laughing at him. Tess joined her.

“William, can you look at me?”

Will took an extra second to gather himself and look at Quentin.

Quentin folded his arms. “Pull up EDITH.”

EDITH’s ethereal voice, completely void of judgement filled the basement. “ _ Hello, Quentin. _ ”

He could feel his head throbbing under the pressure. “Yeah. Hi, honey. I need a level 5 search full resource protocol for this device.”

EDITH projected a satellite image of Prague in front of him. It was a picture he;d seen hundreds of times while they were in the pre-production stage of designing the attacks. “ _ Magnifying… _ ”

The map zoomed in on the corner of a building just feet away from the broken ferris wheel. 

“There!” Quentin commanded. “Search everything going in and out of that building.”

EDITH enlarged the image and found CCTV footage of the detached projector arm. “ _ Located. _ ”

The video was sped up and Quentin felt his heart just sink through his body. The projector arm was picked up by Michelle Jones. Of all people, it had to be taken by the one person Peter wanted to talk to no matter what. 

The video clip switched to show footage of MJ and Peter on a deserted bridge. MJ showed him the projector arm and both kids were visibly startled when the image of the hybrid Elemental monster came out, without audio presumably.

“Shit!” Quentin breathed. He turned to a terrified Will.

“You know William, one day, after I've had to kill Peter Parker because of this... I hope you remember, that  **his blood is on your hands** !”

_ It’s falling apart,  _ Marion said in glee.

_ Not yet, _ Quentin thought. His body was charged with rabid energy. Damage control. He needed to fix this. 

His list of loose ends was longer now. Priority was shifted to Peter. Tess was still dangerous, but he knew for a fact that she wouldn’t alert the authorities if there was the slightest chance that Quentin would get to Vivi or Frank first. 

Quentin couldn’t let Peter get the projector arm to Fury. He might have EDITH, but to also have SHIELD on their tail would be a folly of the greatest kind.

Which meant they had to intercept him. The cameras and bugs they’d planted all around Peter reported that he’d logged out of all social media and emails. His laptop was turned off and so was his phone. He left both devices back in his hotel suite, put on his stealth suit and jumped out through the window.

Quentin grabbed Dennis and his laptop and set to work.

Doug was in charge of getting them a ride to Berlin. Peter had taken the train out of the Czech Republic. Quentin coached Dennis on how to get new illusions onto EDITH. He didn’t want to assign this to Will, still far too angry to talk to him right now.

He couldn’t just throw some projection of a big monster at him again. Peter would be expecting that. He knew that the drones existed and made the projections. Peter even knew what a drone looked like thanks to the fiasco involving Brad Davis. Quentin’s team knew the ins and outs of Peter’s life. They knew about the dead parents and the dead uncle. They knew about the financially struggling aunt before the Blip, but the Parkers were better off now thanks to Stark’s funding. Peter needed the right set of emotional hits to be taken down. 

Quentin used EDITH to bring up the latest Avenger suits worn during the battle at the Compound. He also found all of Peter’s suit designs Stark had stored in the EDITH server. This included the first outfit Peter had worn at the age of fourteen. How cute. How interesting.

Doug drove the team to their private jet in a lonely airfield and they traveled to Berlin. All the while, Quentin was busy downing energy drinks and coding his masterpiece.

Forget the London attack, this was the gem. The highlight of his career.

He was going to trick Spider-Man and kill him, without even laying a hand on him. 

* * *

The tall building under construction was completely empty for the weekend. Quentin checked the rail line that ran just off the property. The next train was due in half an hour. The team stationed all the drones available all through the building. Quentin sent most of them packing to London. He didn’t need everyone for this. Just a few extras for noise production.

Dennis was in his back-up mocap suit meant for emergencies. He was nearly as tall as Quentin, but that wasn’t really the selling point. He just had to be a place marker for one portion of the illusion.

The tracker in the stealth suit pinged off the EDITH satellite, letting him know that Peter had just gotten off the train. Quentin drove out to the station in a grand Audi they’d rented on short notice. He activated the projection and the vision of Nick Fury encapsulated his body.

Peter had made a woman run from him screaming just as Quentin pulled up in front of him.

“Get in,” he ordered and Peter didn’t even hesitate. Quentin barely eyed the projector arm in his grip. Dennis would make sure to destroy it when they reached the building.

Peter wrestled with his mask, an obvious bundle of nerves. “Mr. Fury!”

Quentin could easily project his anger through Fury’s stoicism. “You’ve gotta lot of explaining to do.”

“No, no! Wait!”

“Wait till we’re secure.”

“Okay,” Peter sighed, facing the road again. 

After a small incident of him breaking the seatbelt, Peter barely moved from the seat, frozen in fear and worry. It was incredible that his so called heightened senses were just not pinging around Quentin. 

They turned into the building, driving inside what looked like a high end office facility as manufactured by the holo tech.

Peter put on his mask and followed ‘Fury’ up to the secure room.

Maria Hill was waiting there across the table. Thanks to Quentin’s conversations with her, he knew more or less how she held herself and spoke.

“So…” Quentin made to walk around the table. “Is there anything you want to tell us about your girlfriend?”

“He’s talking about EDITH,” Hill added in case Peter went off on a spiel about Michelle.

“Look, I know a mistake and I’m sorry, but he’s not who you think he is,” Peter began, hardly taking a breath. “Beck is a liar. Mysterio, the Elementals, it’s all a fake. He has some sort of illusion tech and that’s how he tricked you guys and he tricked me into giving him EDITH.”

Peter passed the projector arm on the table. It was a good thing they had a platform to render as a conference table or it would have been awkward for Peter to have placed the arm on it and watch as it just fell through it.

“It’s a projector. I pulled it off the fire monster in Prague.”

“So, all that death and destruction we witnessed was created by this?”

Quentin had done a fantastic job with Maria’s face. They’d had worried photos of her on hand and had to quickly model the looks onto a 3D space to give it real definition. Fury was another behemoth to tackle, but they still managed it.

See? Quentin didn’t need Vivi for the heavy duty stuff. He’d managed this by himself.

“No, not just this. I think he’s using drones.”

Hill went to stand by the window and Quentin said, “If this is true then Beck’s very dangerous and we need to be smart. Who else did you tell about this?”

Quentin’s light finger movement gave Dennis the signal to aim the cloaked drones at Peter. As expected, this set off his senses as Peter looked around almost directly at the drone units themselves.

“Parker? Parker!” Well, since they already had audio footage of Fury calling Peter from his zoned out mood...

“What’s wrong?” Hill asked, ending her audio need.

“It’s Beck. He’s here,” Peter said, going into Spider-Man mode. He put his eyepiece back as the hologram slowly disappeared, Maria Hill included. The entire facility transformed back into its original state, revealing the abandoned condition, deserted for at least a block.

Quentin gave a stunned call, “What? Hill?”

“No, it's just an ill…” Peter tried to say but had to immediately dodge as the drone behind him fired a shot. Quentin let the blank hit his padded chest, throwing him against the wall and crumpling into an unmoving heap.

“Fury!”

Time to get him off the floor.

The same drone hit Peter with a stronger shot point blank in the chest. It blasted Peter through the back wall, sending him crashing several floors down. He landed flat on the concrete, coughing in pain.

Quentin took control of the drones, waving Dennis away. He brought the illusion to life and spoke into the speaker that projected his voice from the drones. Peter stood up groaning, unsteadily clutching at his chest. 

“Wow, Peter. Wow. I thought we were close,” Quentin began. “Fury always had to die. But not you.”

The hologram of several drones surrounded Peter and aimed green, foreboding lasers at him.

“Stop hiding, Beck!” Peter yelled, shooting webs at one of the drones but missed. Their cloaking devices activated and the units disappeared moving away from the webs.

“I tried to help you walk away. Now you're making me do this,” Quentin’s voice echoed as he blocked all light from the open walls of the building. Everything went dark. While Quentin turned on his night vision, Peter flinched as the drones covered him in the illusion of the classic red and blue suit.

Dennis was on the ground and Quentin was making his way there, taking the stairs at a languid pace.

The lights fell down, revealing a school corridor covered in green smoke that covered the floor like a lame school party in the gym. Mysterio’s avatar appeared in front of Peter while the lights flickered menacingly. 

Quentin was letting his anger truly bleed out now. “You told me you were just a kid.”

Peter tried to shoot his webs again. Quentin hid the webs and gave the image of green smoke leaving his web shooters. The confusion surrounding Peter wasn’t enough to cheer Quentin up.

Mysterio vanished only to reappear behind Peter. “You told me you wanted to run after that girl.

Peter gave an impressive punch, his fist cracking the cement of the pillar. He groaned, holding his throbbing hand.

Michelle’s voice emerged from his right. “Help me!”

“MJ!”

Quentin watched with growing glee as Peter ran without hesitation, breaking through a door. The scene changed to display a magnificent and creepy view of the top of the Eiffel Tower. The door broke from the force and fell down. Peter stumbled before finding MJ, confused and scared]

“Peter? What's going on?” she asked in panic.

Quentin’s team had never caught an image of Michelle looking scared, so this was purely CGI. High definition photorealistic work.

Peter was starting to catch on because he said, “I know this isn't real!”

Quentin smirked. He let the scene play out, watching as Mysterio materialized out of the suspicious full moon and grabbed MJ by the neck.

“Do you, though?”

“MJ!” Peter was already running for her but Mysterio was quicker, throwing her off the roof. 

Quentin watched in awe as Peter just leaped after her, not even throwing a web to side to catch himself.

“MJ!” he screamed while her shriek tapered out. Peter hit the ground, just two floors from the jump. He tried to tuck and roll but Quentin saw his head slam against the tough concrete.

“I don't think you know what's real, Peter,” Quentin hummed. The next sequence was activated and Peter jerked, his entire body swaying as lights and images flew past him. Buildings passed at incredible speeds till one neon lit structure stopped right in front of him. It had the bright word ‘Queens’ marketed on it.

Quentin turned on the wrecking ball behind the drones and let it fly right at Peter as the illusion of Mysterio’s gigantic gloved fist struck through the projected building. The real iron ball smashed into Peter, sending him flying again. He broke through the horizon, shattering it like glass. Metal lines were rigged on the way down, hitting Peter like his own webs. It was a miracle that he wasn’t sliced into pieces.

“ _ You need to wake up! _ ”

Peter fell right out of the vision as he slammed bodily onto an old car, smashing its front and exterior. Glass burst out from the windshield, masking Peter’s cry of pain.

Quentin nearly sighed as he checked the time. Four minutes for the next train.

Peter pushed himself off the car and fell to the ground. The bright sunlight might have helped him recover from the illusions. He got to his feet but spun around, paranoid and breathing anxiously. 

Break’s over. Quentin brought dozens of drones to fly out of the windows of the building, bringing the illusion back around Peter.

_ See, Pete. This is what I can do. I can remove the sun and put you under eternal darkness. You’ll never live beyond what time I grant you! _

Under a new projection subsequence, huge shards of glass fell down, impaling themselves on the ground surrounding Peter. It was just the drones sending concentrated air blasts on the ground, but Peter moved to the center, believing he was stuck.

“I mean, look at yourself,” Quentin said in disgust. Peter froze, staring at the multiple reflections all facing him.

Matrix-inspired, Peter went to touch one of the mirrors. Of course, there was no mirror. Instead, Dennis reached forwards and quickly grabbed Peter’s wrist through the image. Peter yanked his arm back, reared around and punched a drone through and through.

Quentin blinked. Damn, that was close.

That drone sputtered and fell to the ground but the rest of the illusion mounted on top of the kid, each drone using air waves to push him down. It looked like several people were forming a football pile, but Quentin wasn’t too sure what it felt like.

Costume change.

The air pressure let up and Peter jumped out, gasping for breath, now donned in his first Spider-Man suit. (If it could be called a suit.)

“You are just a scared little kid in a sweatsuit!” Quentin cried, muffling his laughter.

The scene changed again, glass shards disappearing to show something of an elephant graveyards with monuments of fallen heroes. The sombre grey stones that made up Captain America’s iconic shield served as base for Peter’s trembling feet.

He was surrounded by the ruins of Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, and the Vision’s statues. The mist around the area smoothened down to allow a towering statue of Mysterio to appear in front of Peter.

“I created Mysterio to give the world someone to believe in,” Quentin explained, his voice reverberating around the construction compound. “I control the truth!  _ Mysterio is the truth. _ ”

The next sequence was a sweet little fight between Peter and Mysterio. It wasn’t real. The green lasers were just lights, but the explosions were quite something. Peter jumped and dodged the light, flipping around and webbing up to the broken statues to escape Mysterio. Finally, he landed on his feet and grabbed Mysterio with his webs. He yanked with all his strength but the illusions flickered as a real element entered the fray. A heavy crane came tumbling down which Peter narrowly avoided, absolutely confused. 

Quentin switched it up and next, a stone arm that marked justice crashed down on Peter only for it to vanish into smoke. Peter gave a short scream, crouching down and bracing himself. But the smoke enveloped him and he emerged in the first Stark suit he’d worn. Peter looked up and found himself face to face with Tony Stark’s grave, the headstone bearing his name and date of death.

Quentin leaned into the mic and crooned, “If you were good enough, maybe Tony would still be alive.”

The silence that filled the space was disturbing. Peter’s body was frozen, eye lenses gone wide, still staring at the headstone.

A mechanized hand burst out of the ground and tried to grab Peter. He wrenched himself away scurrying back in panic. The partially decomposed corpse of Tony Stark in an Iron Man suit crawled out of the grave, misaligned thrusters lighting up in a grotesque attempt at flying. 

The illusions warped around the zombie-esque corpse, its eye socket looming over Peter. Several black widow spiders crawl out of it and the illusion bends overtaking Peter’s vision and making him focus on rows and rows of marching Mysterios. 

“Deep down, you know I'm right.”

One of the eyes on Mysterio’s cape pins blinked. Illuminati confirmed. It opened up to swallow Pete, the world around him changing to mimic a snowy landscape of a toy glass globe.

Dennis was ready with the mocap suit.

Buildings shot out of the snow, growing around him, locking him inside the city of New York, a reality constructed to make him  _ safe _ . The illusion expanded outward and Dennis used his glass helmet to mimic Mysterio detaching the snow globe from his body.

Quentin was ready with his Fury avatar. “You made your choice, and all you had to do was step aside. And now, you ha-”

The sequence shudders as the loudest gun shot snapped out the entire image. Quentin watched himself flinch as the bullet ‘hit’ him. Dennis did a great job of it. No Hollywood flailing and shouting, just a wretched gasp (like Marion’s) before he fell, knees hitting the ground heavily, and then faceplanting.

Peter didn’t seem to know what to do or even to think. He rolled out of a pile of gritty sand, watching as SHIELD operatives drove onto the scene to get out of their cars and surround Beck, guns aimed at him.

Quentin stumbled towards Peter, holding his hand in the perfect form to use a gun.

“Fury!” Peter choked, disbelievingly. 

“Beck's people... We're trying to find everyone who could expose him. Who'd you tell?”

Quentin needed this info. Apart from disorienting him enough to catch Peter offguard, Quentin needed a full list of everyone Peter would have told. Michelle found the projector, so she was a target. Ned probably. Anyone else?

“Uh…” Peter placed his hands on his head, still reeling from everything.

Quentin raised his voice, “I know you told someone. So, just tell me…”

“Okay…”

“Who did you tell?! Who  _ else  _ did you tell?!”

Peter finally stammered, “Just Ned and MJ from my class! And maybe Ned told his girlfriend Betty, but that's it!”

It worked…?

Quentin folded his arms, chuckling. He did it. He tricked Spider-Man.

“What?” Peter asked, defensive. Oh, right. The illusion was still going. It must be strange to see Fury giggling.

“You... are so dumb.” Quentin shook his head.

Peter just stared back. His goggles were still on, but the stealth suit had markers over its outfit. Quentin knew Peter’s pulse, blood pressue, body language, and facial expression. He was starting to figure it out, but didn’t want to believe it.

“What?” Peter whis[pered.

_ Wrong question, Pete. You lost because you haven’t asked the questions you needed to. You just went ahead and believed me. _

“I mean, you're smart as a whip. Just a…,” Quentin hedged for a decent word. “Sucker.”

He removed the last piece of the illusion and revealed himself. Peter’s heartbeats danced.

“Now all your friends have to die,” Quentin continued, bringing two drones on either side of him to derail Peter again.

(Ha! Derail.)

“It's easy to fool people when they're already fooling themselves.”

The scene around Peter builds to a falling school corridor, lockers crashing around him and lights flickering again. They were right back where he started. Peter kept shouting, dodging and falling to escape the ‘destruction’ around him.

Maybe there was a bit of remorse. Quentin walked forwards, sending Peter back and back till he crossed the broken wall and walked right onto the train tracks. 

“But for what it's worth, Peter... I really am sorry.”

Everything switched off, the sunlight streaming all around them. Peter was so jarred by the light that he just stared at Quentin before looking down at his feet to register the tracks.

The train was right on time.

Peter didn’t even yell. The sharp nose of the expressway collided with his body and hurtled on disappearing into the tunnel. There wasn’t a stain on the tracks, there was no blood splatter.

It was over. Quentin steeled himself. “EDITH?”

The AI’s cool voice was void of judgement. “Yes, Quentin?”

“Access files to Peter Parker's class trip. I need them to fly home from London.”

* * *

His kill count was now at two. 

(No, we’re not including the casualty rates of the Elemental monsters, obviously.)

Two entire lives snuffed away because they didn’t know when to stop, when to turn around and walk away. And Quentin had given them enough chances to do so. It wasn’t his fault. It was theirs. It was because of them that he would have to add more to the list-Fury, Hill, Jones, Leeds, and Brant.

And Tess, Vivi, and Frank. But that was the next phase.

Quentin and Dennis flew to London on a private jet. It was a quiet trip. Dennis was unusually silent and morose, staring out the window, head lost in the clouds. Quentin understood that the set-up for Peter had been jarring. The kid was driven to pain and anguish before dying in a cruel but swift way. Atleast, Quentin hoped it was swift. He didn’t deserve to suffer so much. Quentin wasn’t that horrible.

Dennis didn’t even look at the EDITH server, open on his laptop. He was meant to track any new logs from SHIELD, to see if they suspected anything. But Tori would be on top of that. Quentin had no doubts that she would pick up the slack. Dennis just needed a time out.

They landed at a private airfield where Gutes picked them up in a small minivan.

“How did it go?” Gutes asked. Quentin was just getting acclimated to sitting shotgun when he turned to look at the backseats where Dennis sat, silent and unresponsive.

“A little brutal,” Quentin admitted. “But it’s over. Once we’re done with London, we’ll be home free.”

Gutes nodded, not too confident. He looked in the rear view mirror periodically to gauge Dennis’s expressions.

It was a bright afternoon, a smattering of clouds spread over the horizon. The city was gorgeous with high rise dated old structures. People roamed over the roads, engrossed in their lives, leaving a polite distance between strangers as they walked by. The liveliness was very different from New York’s, but Quentin could see soft colors bloom from the crowds.

It was a beautiful day. A day fit for a winner. Quentin could almost see himself, emerge from the dust after the final monster was defeated, facing relieved spectators who were saved by him. He would receive applause from and flowers, people cheering for him as they once did for the Avengers. Who knows, even the Queen might stop by to thank him for saving the city.

Wishful thinking. There was a small smile on his face as they pulled up beside a dirty street with a very noticeable lack of people. Gutes lead them into a small empty workshop where the team had set up all their instruments.

“Tori’s got the generator arranged in the basement,” Gutes explained, walking towards the others. “SHIELD’s HQ is uptown near Westminster, funnily enough. The school’s about to reach the station in 20.”

Will pushed a laptop towards Quentin. He could see video footage of the inside of a train car, with Peter’s classmates tossing paper bits around the seats at each other. Michelle and Ned were sitting by the window, heads bent towards each other, whispering something. There was no audio and they were smart enough to have turned off their phones and keep their faces hidden from any potential lip-readers. Betty Brant was sitting beside another friend, showing off the fancy jewelry she’d purchased in Prague.

“You got my coordinates?” Quentin asked, leaning over the screen. 

“Yup. Right in the center of Tower Bridge,” Gutes answered, before moving his arms awkwardly. “Say, Beckingham? DId you hear from Vivi?”

Quentin was careful to not show any outward indicator of anger. “She’s with Frank and Tess. They’re conducting a perimeter check and close up on Fury. We might have to start without them, but they’ll be in touch.”

Janice looked up, alarm. “But if SHIELD finds out -”

“Vivi is great at covering her tracks,” Quentin reminded her. “They’ll be fine. If they aren’t responding, it’s just to keep the comms clear. I’ll track them down later. We need to finish this. Gutes, you better leave now.”

Gutes sighed but grabbed a set of pale blue clothes that was probably a uniform. He left and Janice sat down beside Will to help him with a last minute configuration.

Quentin looked at the real Mysterio suit that lay on the table behind her. “The cape looks wrinkled.”

The lovely red feel of the cape didn’t have its glory look anymore. Janice squinted. “It’s barely noticeable.”

“I think we need to get it out. You have the steamer?”

“Yeah, but if you’ve just been in a fight, people aren’t gonna notice wrinkles, Quentin.”

He gritted his teeth. “Yes. But if we show a perfect illusion of a perfect hero, we need to replicate that everywhere. I know it isn’t idealistic, but we really need those wrinkles out, Jan.”

Janice really didn’t like being called Jan. She just stared at him before getting up in a huff. “Fine.”

Will and Dennis stayed quiet.

Quentin didn’t like this. He didn’t like this lack of camaraderie. Where was the team effort? Where was the 

fresh energy that had once been with them?

He couldn’t understand how they looked so lacklustered by the entire thing. This was something that had spurred everyone to keep moving, keep building. Mysterio was the answer to their questions of power and who deserves it.

Mysterio wasn’t just for the masses to swallow. It was something for everyone, even for his team to believe in. Why didn’t they understand that?

“Will?” Quentin called. “When are you deploying the drones?”

“On your call,” Will replied, without even a glance.

“Good, but the units from the satellite would take at least 12 minutes to get here. So have them ready around the bridge the moment everything is uploaded.”

Will nodded and didn’t say anything else.

Quentin knew he was upset about the yelling. Will didn’t like anyone yelling at him. (No one would, but this was important right now.)

And Dennis was sulking because he’d just helped kill someone. There was a huge difference in pressing a button to detonate a bomb and pushing someone onto live train tracks. The personal touch could wreck people’s heads.

“Just a few more hours,” Quentin said, hoping to placate them. “Once the fight is over, once I stall SHIELD, we’ll all go our separate ways. You’ll each have a car filled with cash and you won’t ever have to see my face again.”

Dennis clenched his jaw. “If only.”

He let it slide for now. They had work to do. Quentin changed back into his mocap suit and went down to the basement to check on the EMP generator. The sublevel floor was bright and clean with white tiles spread all around. It was strangely sterile and clean with only a few people standing around the van that held the generator. Tori was giving orders to Cole and Desiree on what the hot spots would be around the bridge. 

Grabbing a towel to wipe the grit off his face, Quentin packed his sleeping bag with the team’s cases, and patted his pockets to make sure his gun was safe and holstered. Maybe in another timeline he would have shot Peter, made it quick and clean. But when you needed information, things got dirty quickly.

He gave Tori the signal and Quentin sent a message to Will to activate the drones they had. The others from the EDITH satellite were on their way.

Quentin checked the time. “Alright, I’m leaving. As soon as Gutes picks up the kids, Tori starts up the generator, small pulses at first. Exponential increase, we’re giving this all we got.”

The others nodded and Quentin headed for one of their cars. He didn’t feel like walking to Tower Bridge in the suit. At least it wasn’t the Mysterio metal plate suit. Although he’d have to be ready with it later on: press release, headline stuff.

“Q!” Tori called, jogging towards him. Quentin stopped to wait till she reached him. Her hair was loose and some strands fluttered.

“About last time... “ she said, looking worried. “The kill order -”

“That’s fine! We should have expected SHIELD cars to be missile proof,” Quentin placated her. “I’ll take charge this time, we just need to make this is over. The illusion will cover enough airspace to reach their HQ from the bridge.”

“That’s good… yeah, that’s good,” Tori sighed. “Please tell me our contingency scenarios can cover any eventuality. Because I’ve been running the numbers, Jones and Leeds could still screw everything up.”

“That’s why they’re top priority targets as well! It’ll be fine -”

“Tess isn’t responding to my calls,” Tori interrupted. She didn’t dare blink, trying to bore her worries into his eyes. “I tried Frank’s number too, but nothing’s connecting. Vivi’s systems are logged off, Will has had no luck trying to reach her. She was supposed to help with the extra drone permutations from the satellites.”

Quentin could feel his heart thud faster. He swore colorfully in his head.

Tori winced. “I… get the feeling that they must have…”

“Run?” Quentin asked. “Is that what you’re gonna say?”

“No! No, I meant they must be trying to get the money -”

Quentin massaged his temples. “EDITH won’t authorize any transactions without my command. Vivi can’t access -”

“But we have your voice on record! All the production hours for filming Mysterio, she has enough hours of your audio logs. She could manipulate the codes and reprogram the system.”

“Shit!” Quentin exhaled. He hadn’t thought of that. How could he forget that his voice was in their system?

“Get Dennis to check EDITH’s server. See if any odd logs are there, or any money transfers have been made. Yeah, I know! Vivi can cover her tracks, but we know her style, search for that! We…”

Quentin took a deep breath. “We need to stay calm. We have to finish the fight. I’m going to the bridge. We can run the server to check for her anomalies. We get the drones to finish the illusions, remove Fury, Hill, and the kids. Then we go underground, track down Vivi if she’s been accessed any cash. We use any of the diversion scenarios to throw third parties off our scent.”

Tori pursed her lips. “Technically, we have only a couple of full-fledged diversion scenarios.”

“Yeah, we might have to stray away from exposing EDITH to the world. Anyone with too much brains can make the connection with holo tech and drones,” Quentin muttered, running a hand through his hair to smoothen it down. “Stay on top of it, when I get back, we’ll scrub through the whole thing.”

She nodded slowly. Quentin gazed at her for another second before leaning in, aiming for her lips -

Victoria jerked back. “Umm! What’re you doing?”

Quentin blinked. “I… was going to kiss you?”

She looked stunned. “Why?”

They just stood there, staring at each other till Quentin leaned back. “Nothing, it… I shouldn’t have… I thought-”

“You thought what?” she asked, voice sounding detached. “That I wouldn’t mind kissing you after you threatened to put a bullet in my head?”

Quentin swallowed, stepping back. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” Victoria nodded. “I’ll do the job. I’ll follow your lead, make sure the kill list is done, make sure to track Tess and the others down… we’re not getting together, though.”

“Right. I… I’m sorry -”

“Sorry for trying to kiss me, or sorry for trying to shoot me?”

Quentin’s eye twitched. “I wasn’t really gonna shoot you.”

“So you just had EDITH control the drones to point fun green lasers at everyone’s heads?”

“That’s not… you don’t get it. I was talking about a serious risk that we’re paying for right now,” Quentin hissed. “I had to kill Peter!”

Victoria winced. “I know. Dennis won’t say how you did it.”

“I asked him not to. It’s better that way. No one needs to know how messed up it was.”

She frowned, alarmed now. “Then I won’t ask. I’m doing my job. Go do yours.”

Victoria turned and left him. Quentin stood by the car, watching her leave. He felt an odd emptiness in him.

Tori had never gone against him like that. She’d never stood up to him before. Her glare had been a frigid look of disappointment and anger, like she was surprised that Quentin had dared to presume she liked him. But that was the problem. Quentin was so sure that she’d dropped hints in the past that she did have feelings for him. Subtle and few hints, but had he read them wrong?

He had never planned on shooting her. Why couldn’t she figure that out?

Quentin got into the car, slamming the door. If Victoria couldn’t read  _ his  _ hints, then she didn’t deserve to have him. 

He stewed the entire way to the bridge. The day was bright and warm. Quentin focused on the soft clouds and the perfect weather. There was no sign of rain or anything that could disturb his plans.

By the time he was stationed on the corridor above the bridge, Quentin was prepared. He worked to compartmentalize his worries and emotions, focusing on the task at hand. Victoria didn’t get to make him feel shameful, Peter didn’t get to make him feel guilty. Tess did not get to make him feel remorseful. Marion did not get to make him feel horrified by his actions. None of them had power over him. Quentin knew what he wanted. He did what he had to make sure everything went to plan. He sacrificed everything to succeed here. This was his journey, his life. He was the main character of his story, no one got to dismantle him of that.

Soon enough, Guterman’s voice came over the comms, “I have the kids.”

Victoria gave a short response and hit the city with a quick pulse. The ground trembled.

Quentin began the first sequence. He had Mysterio fly into the city from the south, circling the areas where the drones were spread out. SHIELD HQ was just a few blocks from them. The green smoke from the hero’s trail sent cheers to crop up from the city streets. Quentin let himself grin. The elated cries from people helped keep his mind in control and he had to restrain from making Mysterio fly in a loop-de-loop. Victoria would definitely not appreciate that.

_ Stop thinking about her. You’ve got bigger problems. _

Quentin brought his projection to fly up to the window of the SHIELD’s HQ tower.  _ “I got here as fast as I could. I did a full perimeter sweep. Nothing.” _

Fury stood in front of the glass window. There were SHIELD agents behind him, frantically working with disaster estimates to predict the London situation. Fury’s nostrils flared.  _ “Damn it.” _

_ “Pulse is spiking,”  _ Hill warned.

Mysterio turned to fly back out.  _ “I'll take another look.” _

Fury held on to the glass.  _ “Soon as you see something, report. You're all we got, Beck.” _

_ “If this is what I fear,” _ he said dramatically.  _ “May God help us, Fury. God, help us all.” _

_ God save the Queen _ , Quentin giggled to himself. He waited a moment before switching channels. “Okay, people, no Avengers coming. We're good to go. William, launch the drones.”

Will sounded in better spirits now. “Copy that, brother. Drones are entering the atmosphere, weapons hot.”

“Excellent. Janice?

“Still working on the cape,” Janice spoke. Quentin shook his head. “You gotta get those wrinkles out in a few hours. I could literally be shaking hands with the Queen. Guterman?”

“Almost in position,” Gutes muttered.

“Okay, hit it, Victoria.”

“Increasing pulse,” she informed. The corridor above the bridge was structurally sound, but he was prepared for the tremor. A short quake blasted across the ground, rocking the city and shaking the bridge.

“ _ Whatever this thing is, it's a hundred times bigger than the previous ones,” _ Hill responded to the motion.

Quentin focused on his glass HUD. “EDITH?”

_ “Yes, Quentin.” _

“Show me my loose ends.”

Green letters surrounded red filtered holograms of five faces. Michelle’s stern impression was almost on par with Fury and Hill’s. Betty and Ned simply seemed pleased in the frozen images.

Quentin pressed his lips together. “Once the show's going, execute a kill order on my command.”

“ _ Copy.” _

Things went according to plan. The pulses hit, the ground broke, the water reared, people panicked, and the drones conjured a brilliant projection of the elements coming together to form a dastardly monster, standing taller than the London’s Eye. Quentin had to crane his neck to see the entire Elemental, a combination of air, fire, water, and earth, sending tiny civilians screaming and running for their lives.

“The kids are in the kill zone,” Gutes called out. Quentin knew to wait at least 2 minutes for Gutes to get off the bridge. 

“EDITH, target Jones, Leeds, and Brant,” Quentin said. Three drones flew out of formation and moved towards the red double-decker tour bus London was so famous for. It was jammed right in the middle, perfect for aim.

“ _ Targets acquired. Shall I deploy? _ ” EDITH answered.

“No, we’re going to let the hurricane solve them.”

The drones blasted their air cannons at the water, sending them swirling. Cyclonic movements brought dust and debris and it made the attack in Ixtenco look like a simple incident. Lightning came about, electricity sent by scores of drones, frying electronic devices of many people. The violent reactions all put together hit the tour bus, sucking the double decker up into the monster and crushing it.

As the face of the monster emerged from the smoke, giving a battle roar, Quentin admired his creation. “Now, that’s an Avenger-level threat.”

EDITH tracked Peter’s classmates as every single one of them managed to escape the bridge. Quentin kept an eye on them, watching as his three targets including Eugene Thompson separated from the group to run away.

Bad choice, kiddies.

“Follow them, take all four of ‘em out,” Quentin directed, adding controls to bring Mysterio to attack the monster.

The three designated drones followed the students out. EDITH would make sure they were eliminated, but Quentin still wanted to keep his eye on it.

“Beck, report!” Fury called.

“Guterman!,” Quentin blinked a few times reading his screen. “I need a - I need a response. Something quick and concise!”

“Uh, it’s all the Elementals,” Gutes said, clearly reading off one of their scripts. “They’ve somehow merged into something far more powerful! It’s drawing energy from the Earth’s core!”

Quentin tried to deliver those lines, but the passion wasn’t there. He was losing it. He needed Fury and Hill eliminated ASAP.

“EDITH, where are the SHIELD targets?”

She showed an image of Fury, positioned on a high up floor, far above the illusion. Hill was no where to be seen.

“Where is she?” Quentin asked, growing antsy.

“SHIELD has activated blockers within the building,” EDITH replied. “Lieutenant Hill cannot be tracked. But I have a clear view of Commander Fury.”

“Brute force through it,” Quentin growled. “Take him out when you find her, not before.”

There was a growing pain on the top of his head. He didn’t need a headache on top of all this. Quentin was about to check on the kids, when the illusion in front of him shifted unexpectedly. 

He stared out the window. The projection of Mysterio sending lasers to hurt the monster was… off. The angle was skewered for a moment before correcting itself. As he watched, other elements also twitched. The smoke simulation went blue for a microsecond, one of the lightning bolts didn’t have the proper sound effect, and Quentin was sure that the entire segment of the Elemental’s arm just moved like it got dislocated.

It snapped back immediately and Quentin swallowed, tapping into his access point. He found the coordinates of every drone, some of which were moving from their designated locations.

“William, I’ve got drones breaking formation,” he called, watching the illusion for any other mistakes. The image held, but the units were still jerking around. 

“Maybe they hit a flock of birds or something, you’re fine,” Will disregarded him. 

The last time Will had this attitude, Quentin had lost it. He wasn’t about to trust this. “Well, I wanna see what’s happening there. I’m taking manual control.”

He got an inside view of the illusion.

His blood boiled.

If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. Marion wasn’t here anymore, but Vivi had given enough of a negative reaction to fill up her absence. Tess had left but Victoria was here making Quentin doubt his actions. Stark was dead, but he’d left Peter to torment Quentin.

Everyone was turning against him.

“You see anything?” Will asked. Quentin just looked up, trying to compose himself.

“Yeah,” Quentin said. “And I’m gonna kill him.”

The illusion suddenly flickered, drones suffering high voltage. The image was breaking. Quentin could only stare as the Elemental, the smoke, and Mysterio was suddenly losing focus with the drones’ holo tech turning off and the cloaking mechanisms failing.

Quentin’s fingers flew over his access point. The kids were still evading the drones, the illusion was breaking, EDITH was still searching for Hill.

“Take out Fury,” Quentin barked. “Now! And get the malfunctioning drones to reboot!”

His comm crackled with Will’s harried voice,. “Boss! The illusion’s coming apart!”

The smoke in front of him turned into clean air as blue voxels revealed the drones with a small red and black clad figure perched on one of the units.

“ _ Heat signature detected, _ ” EDITH called. “ _ Vitals and body markers suggest that it’s Peter Parker. _ ”

He didn’t know how Peter survived the train. Did he somehow avoid getting hit, but instead latched on to the side effectively? No, Quentin saw the train slam into him at its top speed. Saw it with his own two eyes. And unlike him, Peter hadn’t carried any holo tech on him.

But he was still here, having managed to break the illusion by temporarily attacking the drones’ systems. Peter was in a suit Quentin didn’t recognize. It was close to the first suit Stark had given him, but the blue was switched with black, and the red wasn’t as bright. 

The familiar lenses of the Spider-Man mask narrowed and Peter began to leap from drone to drone, making his way towards Quentin.

“EDITH, give me some protection,” Quentin called, forcing his body to not flinch away. Peter was moving with a sole purpose. 

EDITH wrangled the drones together, one of them slamming into Peter to derail his path. He fell all the way down to the road and EDITH said, “ _ The unit targeting Commander Fury has lost signature and coordinates. He and Lieutenant Hill have moved underground. Shall I send units down? _ ”

No, no… wait, Peter would have found a way to notify Fury… or did he come here by himself? No, he got the suit from somewhere. SHIELD couldn’t supply and completely new suit for him, could they? Maybe it was Stark’s ghost.

One step at a time. 

“Okay, kill it, just kill the illusion,” Quentin said, turning around.

“No, I’m not gonna kill it, they’ll see -”

“They’ll see what  _ I want them to see! _ ” Quentin roared.

“Do you still need the cape?!” Janice asked, voice shaking.

“Yes, Janice!” Quentin had to hold back from shouting at her. “I still need the cape.”

Will said, “Done,” and Quentin watched the entire illusion break, folding away into the air to reveal the drones hovering all around the bridge.

Okay, okay, Quentin could do this. He got Will to render Mysterio and began to go over the points to begin a new sequence.

“ _ Stark technology - Quinjet spotted landing without license, _ ” EDITH said, making Quentin gape for a moment.

He’d asked her to keep an eye on everything Stark and Avengers related. He looked out the window and caught sight of a sleek white jet just touching down by the concrete river bank.

“Who the hell is that?” he muttered. “EDITH, check the pilot, anyone exiting it. Make sure the jet does not get off the ground. Extreme preventive measures.”

_ “Understood, Quentin.” _

The drones tracking Jones, Leeds, Brant, and Thompson found, of all people, Happy Hogan talking to them. EDITH took out the jet with a spectacular explosion, but the five of them ran into the tower, crossing the Queen’s guardsmen.

It was taking too long. The more he waited for things to happen, the more variables would come into play.

“EDITH, target Spider-Man,” he said, annoyed. “I’ll just kill the kids myself.”

He switched to the cameras of the three drones targeting the kids. They were moving to the tower, following Hogan’s direction. Quentin kept a close eye, losing one drone to a guardsman but managing to get a few others into the Crown Jewels sector.

The drones broke into the museum, firing at the kids as the hallways got tighter and tighter. Glass cases housing knight suits shattered and the kids scattered, disappearing from view. Quentin halted the drones, now moving slowly.

Quentin frowned, staring at the screen of his access point. They were in the museum, hiding from the drone. It was quiet with no movement. 

And then, something metallic echoed through the hall. Quentin smiled, “I see you.”

He moved the drone towards the right, guns at the ready but a full suit of armor toppled over and fell right in front of him. Quentin’s trigger happy finger hit the screen and the drone sent a round of bullets into the armor, sparks flying off.

Suddenly, the entire drone was weighed down by a hit. A shocking hit that sent it reeling to the ground. Quentin boosted its thrusters to keep it flying, but the drone kept firing wildly, flying in circles. Through the camera, he saw the kids run by it, avoiding the bullets and heading for the vault.

He smirked at the metal doors of the vault, bringing up the high intensity laser option to cut them open. He looked up. “Get me eyes on Spider-Man.”

A second window appeared on his access point, showing him what the drones were doing to Peter… Quentin blanched at the screen. What was Peter doing to the drones?

He was obliterating them.

Peter was waving in and out of the bridge, swinging up high, evading missiles and bullets of hundreds of units flying after them. There was something ethereal in his style. Peter swung on his webs like he was born to do so. He spun like a ballet dancer and planned like a strategist. 

Peter brought a cab down on dozens of drones and webbed up several more, dragging them behind him like a sac of spider eggs to crash them into the iron cables of the bridge. Debris from hundreds of drones were strewn all over the roads, amidst burning cars. He kept catching drones in his webs like it was running out of style. 

“EDITH, get at least 5 units to fire the cannons at his face, there’s no point in following him,” Quentin sighed irritably. “We need to face him head on.”

Peter landed on the roof of the other corridor and Quentin finally locked his coordinates, “Gotcha!”

He isolated one dozen drones to wait to catch Peter off guard. The kid jumped off the roof, his suit on fire. He didn’t look too worried, instead just kept destroying more drones before swinging close to the water to douse the flames.

It was when he finally flipped over after crashing another few million dollars worth of EDITH’s system that Quentin could finally blast the shit out of him. 

All seven drones in front of Peter fired the cannons. Air pressure slammed into him and he body-slammed into the top of car fallen sideways. Quentin repeated the move and brought another car to sandwich Peter, pushing him and all the vehicles across the road and over the edge. He fell into the water, a couple of cars falling on top of him with heavy splashes.

“Finally,” said a relieved Quentin. “Hey, William? How’re we doing?”

“Illusion’s almost back on,” Will said, clearly distracted by his frantic typing. “I dunno how you’re going to spin this.”

Quentin watched the projection appear, the remaining drones conjuring up the image of the Elemental. He smiled. This would work. People would be confused, searching for answers, and he would offer the only believable solution. There would be doubts but those will be squashed by everyone else’s absolute trust in  _ him _ .

The illusion continued, picking up from where it had paused. Peter had only been able to disrupt the sequence not obliterate it. Did he think that people would relaise that it was fake? Didn’t he know how malleable perception is?

He’s gonna find out.

Quentin checked on the Crown Jewels vault situation. To his irritation, the lasers hadn’t been able to cut through the metal doors. Hogan was smart, but not smart enough.

“Come on, EDITH. Get more drones to break the vault open. Use the air cannons, I want them all without a pulse in the next two minutes!” Quentin snarled.

_ “Copy,” _ she said and immediately found more units to fly into the museum. Quentin gritted his teeth, trying to calm down. It was working. It would work. He was going to win. It was his day. The sun would be shining on his victory. He was -

The bridge shook. Quentin was knocked off his feet and he nearly crashed into one of the drones flying beside him. He grabbed the wall imediately looking around him to find the source of the blast because it couldn’t be Victoria’s generator. She would never -

The glass section of the floor shattered as someone crashed right through it, grabbed Quentin by his HUD brace and punched a hard blow to his cheek. The reading on his helmet flickered and the drones suddenly stopped, the illusion pausing again.

The left hook stunned Quentin, his world view shifting as he noticed Peter lifted him off his feet. His sturdy grip on Quentin and the narrowing of the lenses in his mask gave Quentin a clear view of what Peter was feeling.

Thank goodness for back-up plans because it was taking forever to kill him.

Peter rasped, “Your lies are over, Beck.”

Quentin gave him a lazy smile. “This certainly isn't ideal, but... I have contingencies. EDITH?”

He might not have been able to remove peter’s prints from EDITH, but the AI would not hesitate to gun down her previous owner, Quentin made sure of that.

One of the drones behind him took aim and blasted its air cannon right into Peter’s face. Quentin landed on his feet. While Peter was thrown back by the pressure, rolling to a stop at the end of the corridor.

Relentless, Peter stumbled back to his feet. “Just give me the glasses!”

Quentin was prepared with another sequence to bombard him. He pulled the sunglasses out of his motion capture suit, holding them up and taunting, “You want these? Come and get them!”

A dozen drones flew in through the broken windows on either side. They activated their cloaking mechanism and projection system. The corridor turned dark, with green mist moving over the floor. Quentin stepped back into the light, safe behind the illusion. Peter was going to drop himself through the hole in the floor and Quentin was going to watch him break his body again.

And yet…

The drones were programmed to charge as soon as Peter made a move, but the kid just stood there for a moment. He muttered something that Quentin didn’t catch. The white lenses of his new Spider-Man mask reduced to slits until it was completely overtaken by black.

Then, Peter ran to the side, bracing a foot against the wall to dodge the first drone that barely missed his torso. Peter turned and brought a fist down into the second drone that didn’t even manage to fire at him. He rolled on the ground, effortlessly avoiding the next two units, instead managing to make them fly and smash against each other.

Quentin stopped breathing.

What was he…?

Peter’s eyes were closed.

He wasn’t falling for the projection.

Peter was making his way towards him, with each step, dodging more drones, making them fire at each other, breaking them apart with his fists. He tore two projector arms and leaped, practically swivelling 360 degrees in the air before bringing the tough arms down onto more drones, destroying everything that was in his path.

He was getting closer to Quentin. 

It wasn’t working. Quentin exhaled, stepping back and nearly bumping into one of the stationary drones beside him.

What. The. Fuck?

“Why aren't these drones firing?!”

Maddeningly neutral, EDITH replied,  _ “You're in the strike zone. The chances of getting hit…” _

“NO! FIRE-ALL-THE-DRONES-NOW!”

The drones behind him fly ahead, weapons at the ready but Peter just knocked his way through them. He moved his head, ducking under one unit, managing to break its arm. The drone spun around with one thruster making it turn haphazardly and one of its bullets hit Quentin in the chest.

The force of it makes him fall on his front. Quentin grabs his chest and just manages to stop from face-planting into the floor. 

Right in the chest.

Quentin groaned. The bullet felt hot. It had ripped through his ribs, striking a lung. Quentin could feel blood bubbling up. He spat some away, his chest forcing itself to keep breathing. His head was swimming from the pain. Marion was watching him with lightless eyes.

It was a bright and beautiful day. He was supposed to win.

There was blood on his hands. He was supposed to be the hero.

You’re not Scott Lang, you’re not even Tony Stark. Tess’s voice which once infuriated him now felt unavoidable. Quentin rolled onto his side, trying to sit up against the wall.

He could feel his gun press against his stomach. 

The units were all destroyed. The wreckage around the bright corridor smelled of burning wires and gunpowder. The drones closest to Quentin cloaked him. He got to his feet, every step causing shooting pains to wrack his body. If he could just trick Peter one last time, make it to the elevator behind him...

Peter let out a breathless grunt, yanking his mask off his face. His face was teary and bleeding.

“Beck!” He gasped, heading for him. For the projection on the ground. Quentin watched Peter turn his back to him to facing the illusion. “Beck... You lied to me. I trusted you!”

“I know,” Quentin whispered, smiling sadly. He took out the gun and clicked the safety off. “That's the most... disappointing part. You're a good person, Peter. Such a weakness…”

The projection held the EDITH glasses out to him while Quentin held the gun mere inches away from Peter’s temple.

“Stark was right. You do deserve that,” Quentin said and pressed the trigger.

Peter was faster than the bullet.

He grabbed Quentin’s wrist and shoved it away from his head, the bullet ripping out right in front of his face and smashing through the glass of one of the last windows that had not been broken before.

Peter didn’t even have to look at Quentin to save himself. He didn’t need the light to know he’d won. 

Even so, the bright day was for Peter, not Quentin.

Quentin’s hand was being twisted, making him drop the gun. The illusion disappeared as his focus vanished. Quentin’s entire body spasmed and Peter watched him with no mercy.

(Maybe that hurt more than Quentin thought it would.)

“You can't trick me anymore,” Peter said, voice steady. His eyes were red and swollen. The kid grabbed the glasses of Quentin's head making no move to help him as he crumpled to the floor. This time, Quentin’s head hit the ground and he saw spots growing in his vision. His awareness moved in and out. His chest screamed in pain and he tried to reach his access point, tried to get anything else to snatch the glasses away, but his fingers wouldn’t move.

He heard EDITH greet Peter, heard her follow his commands to send the drones away.

“Thank you,” he heard Peter say.

Was Peter thanking him?

No, he was thanking an AI. She had no feelings, no life, and yet this kid...

Quentin saw Peter’s red clad boots turn towards him. The pain was disappearing and he found it a little hard to focus on Peter’s words.

“How could you …. this?” 

How could I? It was easy, Peter. You shouldn’t go through life just not believing in something. You shouldn’t live content as a speck, at the mercy of the wind. You shouldn’t stay quiet while things keep happening to you over and over. You start asking questions, you figure out how to ask, and what to ask. You get answers that won’t make sense and you keep asking better questions to get the right answers. You’re always searching even if you think you don’t. You search because you want to live and breathe, not to just exist as a cog. If the powers that be don’t help you, if your Gods can bleed to death, what is left but a fabric of the truth spun by your own senses?

Words moved in and out but Quentin couldn’t say them all. He could see his blood pool on the floor, soaking the glass and staining the drones.

“You'll see, Peter,” he finally managed to whisper. “People need to believe... And nowadays... they'll believe anything.”

  
  


~~~~~

Tori had always tried to be a headstrong woman. She knew a leader by their scent and Quentin had definitely been one. So, when she watched his vitals go down, watched Will being logged out of EDITH indefinitely, watched the remaining drones fly back into space, back to be stored in the satellite, she knew she had to take charge.

The first step was to pack up everything which she’d ordered the team to do. Second was to make sure they could disappear. SHIELD would definitely be searching for them.

Which lead to the reason for their proposed diversion scenario.

Will grabbed a USB drive from his system before turning it off. They would have to dispose of all laptops and cellphones before running. 

“How many drones do we have?” she asked Will as they stuffed their bags into the rental minivan.

“500 active units,” Will panted, boarding the car and closing the door. She got into shotgun seat and Gutes pulled out of the building driving downtown.

“Better than expected,” Tori nodded. “Good start. Desiree, you got Quentin’s audio and biometric scans?”

“Yes,” she answered, more subdued. “I got them in the portable drive in the back.”

“We’ll start on that once we get to the safehouse. We'll have to get in touch with Dimitri. Can't risk anything on his end,” Tori decided. She looked ahead of them and found a blue SUV driven by Cole. The team had fit themselves and all their stuff in two cars and had plans to leave London. Tori thought tey were on a good schedule for now.

“Which scenario are we going with?” Gutes muttered.

Tori swallowed. SHIELD would have their hands full on whatever subject would have the press badgering them about. And to get the best kind of headlines, they would need a scandal. And incredibly well-spun bit of juicy news.

“My apologies to Peter,” Tori whispered. “But that’s our safest way out of this mess.”

* * *

_ Marion was heartbroken. Quentin couldn’t say anything to placate her. They sat by the window watching cars drive by in the dark; roads illuminated only by the headlights. The streetlights were broken. _

_ “I thought SEEK-Craft was a way for us to help people,” she asked quietly. _

_ Quentin looked down. “We’re the ones who need help. If a god bleeds, we know they were never truly a god to begin with. We found one man and believed he’d save us. We were wrong. So we had to keep searching, right?” _

_ Marion frowned. “Why shouldn’t a god bleed? Why shouldn’t a god have feelings and get hurt? He became a god because we looked at him as one. Who’s fault is that?” _

_ Quentin shook his head. “He was no god. He wasn’t even a hero.” _

_ “And neither were you.” _


End file.
